Llanelli Scarlets 52 Leeds Carnegie 13: Scarlets give young Leeds side red faces with rout

Leeds led in the first half thanks to a try from Warren Fury and two penalties and a conversion from Christian Lewis-Pratt.

However, they suffered a blow by conceding three late tries in the first half.

The scoreline was further stretched by the home side with two tries in stoppage time, but Back refused to let the scoreline take away from the efforts of the club's next generation.

He said: "The scoreline was more a reflection of our poor game management towards the end.

"We tried to attack from deep and that gave them the chance to get some soft tries.

"However, I thought our young players produced a fantastic effort.

"Leeds has a history of producing fantastic players and our aim now is to create an environment that means we retain these guys to be the Leeds starts of the future.

"We are obviously disappointed with the result in the end. There were clear messages when we were 31-13 down at half-time and we improved a lot in the second half.

"We had a young side including Dominic Barrow, a 17-year-old, who was not born when the club was formed in 1992.

"We had a lot of kids out there and they did manfully well to be fair – but lost a bit of composure. I think a fair result would have been something like 38-20. We put a lot of pressure on in the second half."

Flanker Jonny Fa'amatuainu scored a hat-trick as the Scarlets opened up their campaign with a bonus-point victory.

In his first start for the region since moving from Bath on loan, the Samoan blindside flanker was on hand to score three of his side's seven tries.

The young Leeds team could not deal with the pace of the Scarlets, who included Wales squad wing George North in their starting XV.

North played for an hour in what was his first rugby for almost a month since he fractured his ankle against the Ospreys at the beginning of October.

The first half was a nip and tuck affair until the Scarlets hit Leeds with three tries in the space of seven minutes.

First Fa'amatuainu, who was on hand to follow up Scott Williams's kick through for his first score, was on North's shoulder to go over before Williams ran in from the halfway line after an initial burst by Dan Newton.

And on the stroke of half-time Newton was put over for the bonus-point try after good work by No 8 Ben Morgan and lock Aaron Shingler.

Leeds had been in the game during the first quarter and led 13-7 thanks to a try from former Wales scrum-half Fury, who nipped in at the blindside.

After the scoring burst in the second quarter, the first 20 minutes after the break proved scoreless as Leeds pressed the Scarlets line but the home defence held firm.

At the other end the Scarlets twice wasted golden opportunities until Fa'amatuainu completed his hat-trick following a break by lock Dominic Day.

The English side's frustrations were summed up when replacement flanker Oliver Stedman was sin-binned for not rolling away at a ruck. And with the extra man the Scarlets went in for their sixth try through Shingler in injury time before centre Williams went over for his second score.

Williams's try, in the fourth minute of added time, took his side past 50 points and meant the Scarlets had piled on 45 unanswered points.

Scarlets coach Nigel Davies was more than happy with his team's seven-try victory at Parc y Scarlets.

Davies said: "I was very, very pleased overall. We probably could argue that we could have been more clinical but a lot of boys haven't played that much together.

"There was some very encouraging stuff there but also a lot to work on which is a good position to be in.

"Jonny was superb and it was great to have a run-out for us today – there was a whole host of players who showed up well," he said.

"Dan Newton and Gareth Davies did well at half-back and then you had the centre partnership of Nic Reynolds and Scott Williams showed up well.

"It is great to have that strength in depth we have built up over the last 18 months or so.

"These boys will only get better for opportunities like this at this level."

Scarlets: Evans, North (Rhys 59), Reynolds, S Williams, L Williams, Newton (S Shingler 59), G Davies (Roberts 73), John (R Jones 70), Owens (Lawrence 67), P Edwards (Gardner 59), Cooper (Day 57), A Shingler, Fa'amatuainu, Pugh (Cudd 59), Morgan.

Leeds Carnegie: Hinton, Tincknell, Fa'afili (Wackett 37), Burrell, Tadulala (Walker 59), Lewis-Pratt, Fury (Hampson 78), MacDonald (Denamn 55), Nilsen, Swainston (Moreno 47), D. Barrow, Craig, Paul (Denton 67), Myall, To'oala. Unused replacements: Alonso, Barker.

Referee: T Hayes (Wales).

Scorers

Scarlets: Tries – Fa'amatuainu 3, S Williams 2, Newton, A Shingler; cons – Newton 4, S Shingler 3; pens – Newton.

Leeds: try – Fury; cons - Lewis-Pratt; pens – Lewis-Pratt 2.