Fresh from victory over fellow Welsh side Newport Gwent Dragons, head coach Wayne Pivac believes that the pieces of the Scarlets puzzle are starting to fall into place in the GUINNESS PRO12. Pivac takes his troops to Thomand Park on Friday to face Anthony Foley’s Munster side – themselves coming off the back of an impressive win over champions Leinster. However, Scarlets have suffered just one defeat in their last seven PRO12 matches, losing 12-42 against Leinster at the RDS Arena in round 2. But the Welshmen's away form has been far from spectacular with their only victory on the road coming against Benetton Treviso on February 8, while their solitary victory in Ireland since November 2012 was at Connacht last November. The Welsh Region have won just one previous encounter at Thomond Park: 19-12 in the PRO12 in September 2003 and Pivac knows his side will be up against it if they want to beat Foley’s team. “We're improving bit by bit and the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. At this time of year we want to be making good improvements,” he said. "Getting four points from last weekend's game was what we needed to get, it would have been nice to get five but we'll take the four. "If we look at Munster from the loss at home against Edinburgh to where they are now – they've made improvements all the way through. The energy levels and physicality they brought to the Leinster game over 80 minutes was impressive. "They'll test us defensively and there's no doubt it'll be a physical encounter." Each side won their respective home game when the two teams met in the PRO12 last season, whilst Scarlets have been victorious just once on Munster soil in the last eleven years: 13-6 in Cork in November 2012. The Irish side even have the luxury of calling on Peter O’Mahony from the start for the first time since April. And Foley has made seven more changes to the side that beat Leinster with Dave Kilcoyne, BJ Botha and Kevin O’Byrne making up a new front row and Billy Holland coming into the second row. Munster's only defeat in their last four GUINNESS PRO12 encounters was 14-19 at home to Ospreys in round four. The Munstermen have won only one of their last five home games, 31-5 against Zebre on 19th September and JJ Hanrahan knows the pressure is on to improve their home form. “There is always pressure in Thomond Park, a fear factor I suppose of losing in front of your own fans,” he told the Limerick Leader. “It’s a case of trying to turn that fear into a positive thing. You never want three losses at home in Munster. The Leinster game is now parked, the focus has to be with the group of teams we are playing next. “It was great for us, put a bit of belief in the squad, proved to ourselves that we could do it and some fellas might have needed that. It was good for the coaches and the organisation as well and hopefully things will take off from that.” At Thomond Park, 7.35pm. Live on TG4/BBC Wales Referee: Claudio Blessano (FIR, 8th competition game) Assistant Referees: Gary Conway, Dermot Blake (both IRFU) Citing Commissioner: Peter Ferguson (IRFU) TMO: Seamus Flannery (IRFU)
