Liam Belcher was unhappy with Cardiff Rugby’s defeat to the Scarlets and believes his side only have themselves to blame. 

It was a frustrating night in front of an 11,728 crowd at the Arms Park with the Blue & Blacks dominating territory and possession but unable to turn pressure into enough points.

They led at the break and then again midway through the second half thanks to touchdowns from wings Mason Grady and Josh Adams.

But the Scarlets snatched two of their three tries against the run of play with Gareth Davies’ second proving a decisive blow. 

Belcher said: “We’re not happy with that, I’ll be honest with you, we’re not. That’s not what we’re about.

“When you have so many entries close to the line and get held up so many times against a team like that, you either score or don’t, and then that obviously comes around and they take their shot. 

“So that’s a lesson for us. We had systems in place, especially close line where we’ve been good all season, and being honest, we’ve had probably gone too individual and that’s what happens.

“Fair play, they took their chances and they’re a quality team. I think we had 22 entries and if we’d don’t score any of them and don’t a capitalise you take your hat off to them.  They were the better team in sense of capitalising on opportunities.”

It was a sobering blow for Cardiff, who went into the fixture second in the URC table, but they will quickly have to pick themselves up for the Boxing Day derby against the Dragons.

Belcher said: “It comes roundabout I guess. We’ve had the Edinburgh game where we win last kick of the game, Ulster the same again, so it does tend to balance itself out from the season when you look back at it.

“We’ll have a review of that, I think it’ll be almost a reality check, in the sense of we’d been flying high, and hopefully we can right the wrongs against Dragons.”