This West Wales derby to decide who takes the final Champions Cup place will bring national competition by the bucketful with 23 players named in Wales’ RWC squad between the two Regions.
So far this season their score stands at one win apiece in their derby encounters while Ospreys hold an overall winning record of 19 wins to 12 over their neighbours in the Guinness PRO14.
However, even though Scarlets have only won three times at the Liberty Stadium, two of those wins came as recently as 2016 and 2017. To make things even more interesting Wayne Pivac will coach Scarlets for the very last time before he takes up the role as Wales Head Coach after the World Cup.
This will not be short on storylines, that’s for sure.
Saturday 18 May European Play-Off Game
Liberty Stadium, Swansea, 7.45pm.
Referee: Ben Whitehouse (WRU, 58th competition game)
Assistant Referees: Nigel Owens, Dan Jones (both WRU)
TMO: Ian Davies (WRU)
Citing Commissioner: TBC
Overall Guinness PRO14 head to head record:
Played 32, Ospreys won 19, Scarlets won 12 with one game drawn.
Did you know?
- Ospreys Rugby will be hoping to go one better than last year when they lost the European Champions Cup play-off game to Ulster in Belfast.
- Ospreys have won their last four Guinness PRO14 matches since their defeat to Connacht in Galway on 2 March.
- Ospreys only two home defeats at Liberty Stadium in the Guinness PRO14 this season were to Glasgow in round 8 and Munster in round 16, whilst the last Welsh region to beat them there was Scarlets in October 2017.
- Scarlets have never before failed to qualify for the European Champions Cup.
- Scarlets only victory in the last four rounds of Guinness PRO14 was 42-0 at home to Zebre on 13 April.
- Scarlets have only once won away from home in any tournament this season, 41-34 at Southern Kings in October.
- Ospreys 19-12 victory at Liberty Stadium in round 11 ended a run of four successive Scarlets victories in this fixture.
- Overall Scarlets have made 14 previous visits to Liberty Stadium winning three times – in September 2007, March 2016 and October 2017.
