It is not often you hear boos from rugby fans at the final whistle, but they rang out loud and clear as the rain came down at Parc y Scarlets on Friday night.
Scarlets welcomed Challenge Cup new boys Black Lion to Llanelli, and while the visitors were littered with Georgian internationals, the 23-7 defeat still came as a shock to the crowd officially recorded as almost 6,000.
The visitors scored 23 unanswered points as Scarlets’ accuracy, discipline and set piece all fell to pieces.
Head coach Dwayne Peel could do little to hide his frustrations, describing it as a “sobering night” in the post-match media conference.
“There’s hard lessons to be learned in that game and we need to get better,” he told BBC Sport Wales.
“We are obviously bitterly disappointed in the changing room.”
Scarlets have lost seven out of nine games in all competitions this season, including heavy defeats in South Africa and away to Leinster, plus a derby demolition at Ospreys.
Their victories came in the two derbies against Cardiff.
And while a tough season was to be expected for all of the Welsh regions amid budget cuts and smaller squads, Scarlets are clearly struggling.
Injuries have not helped their case either. Peel has an injury list including Wales internationals Ken Owens, Wyn Jones, Johnny McNicholl, Taine Plumtree, Josh Macleod and Sam Costelow as well as Sam Lousi, Dan Jones and Dan Davis.
Asked if this was one of the hardest periods of his coaching career, Peel said: “I think yes at the minute, it’s been a tough start to the season.
“We are where we are and we have the squad we have, and for us we need to be better in our performances.
“We know we’ve got players out and have injuries and there will be a number of players who will be available over the next couple of weeks and that will add energy and boost the squad no doubt.
“But first we’ll look at the performance and some of the performance was fundamentally poor, that’s the truth tonight.”
Scarlets will be back in action when they host Ospreys in the Boxing Day derby, a game Peel calls their biggest game of the year.
“It’s huge for us,” he said.
“We had our backs to the wall in our last URC [United Rugby Championship] game and we went away to Cardiff and had a good victory.
“We had a pretty humbling night… when we played Ospreys last and we have an opportunity in 10 days time to repay that.
“It’s always a big game against them and for where we are now it becomes an important game and we’ll prep that way and put in a performance that we’re proud of.”
