The Scarlets registered their first win at Parc y Scarlets with a 27-13 victory over the in-form Cardiff Blues.
The home side had gone into the match with a draw and a defeat in their opening two games at their new ground following the move from Stradey Park. They notched a key win against a Blues side missing Paul Tito, Martyn Williams, Andy Powell, Gethin Jenkins, Tom Shanklin and Ben Blair, all rested after a busy autumn period.
The opening half-an-hour was riddled by aimless kicking and a lack of a coherent approach from both sides. The Scarlets took the lead with a Stephen Jones penalty on nine minutes, which was cancelled out by a long range effort from Leigh Halfpenny, who started at full-back, three minutes later.
The sides then proceeded to miss four penalties between them in the space of nine minutes as first Jones was wayward with a kickable effort and then Cardiff were off-target with three in a row - two from Halfpenny and one from Ceri Sweeney.
A concerted period of pressure from the Scarlets yielded a second penalty from Jones, only for it to be immediately cancelled out by an effort from Sweeney after the Scarlets forwards infringed at a ruck.
An up and under by Blues scrum-half Darren Allinson was run back effectively by Rhys Priestland just before half-time and after several effective phases Scarlets scrum-half Martin Roberts squeezed his way over from a ruck to score.
Jones missed a chance to extend the Scarlets' lead six minutes into second half after Blues' centre Jamie Robinson was yellow-carded for killing the ball. The Scarlets continued to press and would have had a second try had Halfpenny not pulled off a good tackle on Roberts, who made an incisive blindside break before being hauled down.
The second try was not long in coming, as prop Phil John barged over from close range to give the Scarlets an 18-6 lead. Five minutes later, however, the Blues registered a try of their own when wing Richard Mustoe went past two tacklers to bring his side back into the game. Sweeney landed the conversion to make it 18-13.
Jones provided a cool head in the closing stages, landing two penalties to send the Blues out of bonus-point range.
Scarlets: Rhys Priestland; Ceiron Thomas, Regan King, Jonathan Davies, Mark Jones; Stephen Jones, Martin Roberts; Phil John, Matthew Rees, Deacon Manu, Vernon Cooper, Simon Maling, Simon Easterby (c), Dafydd Jones, David Lyons.
Replacements: Lee Williams for Davies (61), Ken Owens for Rees (69), Craig Cross for Manu (80), Dominic Day for Maling (61), Johnathan Edwards for Easterby (68).
Not Used: Lou Reed, Gavin Cattle.
Blues: Leigh Halfpenny; Richard Mustoe, Jamie Robinson, Gareth Thomas, Tom James; Ceri Sweeney, Darren Allinson; John Yapp, Rhys Thomas, Taufa'au Filise, Bradley Davies, Scott Morgan, Ben White, Robin Sowden Taylor (c), Maama Molitika.
Replacements: N. Robinson for Halfpenny (52), D. Jones for White (63), Czekaj for James (72).
Not Used: Gary Powell, Gareth Williams, Damian Welch, Jason Spice.