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If the Scarlets do end up reaching the Guinness PRO12 play-offs they may well look back on this victory as the key moment in their journey.

For the bulk of this scrappy error-strewn encounter played in dreadful January weather, you wondered just how the home side were going to craft the win they so badly needed to cement their position of prominence in the table.

But the tide turned midway through the second half when rugby's controversial new tackle rules well and truly kicked in.

When scrum-half Aled Davies - who had replaced Gareth Davies at half-time because the Wales star had taken a bang to the shin - lunged for the try-line off a rolling maul in the 62nd minute, Ulster's No.8 Sean Reidy challenged him and appeared to have held him up.

But when the incident was referred to Italian television match official Carlo Damasco, he decreed that under rules brought in only this week aimed at clamping down on tackles anywhere near the head, that Reidy's tackle was high and warranted not just a yellow card but a Scarlets penalty try as well.

The home fans were naturally delirious, but while the decision may yet be deemed correct by the letter of the law there seemed little natural justice or common sense about it.

When play restarted after a conversion by fly-half Dan Jones, who contributed 11 points with the boot, the debate was given added impetus as Scarlets lock Jake Ball moved in to stop Ulster back row Clive Ross in the middle third.

Ball hauled Ross down around the shoulders in the most innocuous fashion but moments later he too was trooping off to the sin-bin as a perpetrator of alleged dangerous play.

There was a farcical feel to both episodes, but get used to it because this is just the start if this is the way the new laws are going to impact on the game.

While Ball's 10-minute dismissal evened things up numerically the penalty try invigorated the Scarlets, who closed out the narrow win albeit not without a few scary moments.

It was hardly a classic, but Pivac and his squad and their supporters won't care because they will know that league campaigns are about digging out victories in all manner of testing circumstances

For the opening hour if not more Ulster were resolute in defence, solid at set-piece and their simple game-plan, which largely centred around keeping possession close to the breakdown and sending big centre Stuart McCloskey on crash-ball forays, looked like paying dividends.

The Scarlets themselves were resilient, but unable to create any meaningful opportunities in attack, wasteful at times in possession and scruffy at the lineout. Pivac's men appeared to have little means of harvesting points short of going through the phases and winning penalties in kickable positions.

And yet Ulster made mistakes too, coughing up possession in promising situations numerous times during a second half in which they failed to trouble the scoreboard.

Added to their profligacy was the kind of indomitable commitment from the Scarlets they showed to get the better of Toulon in the Champions Cup last month.

They were their own worst enemy at times, kicking inaccurately out of hand and over-elaborating when the conditions cried out for a more percentage-based approach.

But somehow they got themselves across the line, something Welsh sides - the national team included - have so often been criticised for failing to do in the past.

It means they have now put themselves in a great position to make the top four at the end of the season going into a month's break from PRO12 action.

The Scarlets have opened up a seven point lead on Ulster now, while they are four ahead of Glasgow who entertain Cardiff Blues on Saturday night.