Benetton Treviso continued the Italian nightmare for South African sides in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship as they downed the DHL Stormers 20-17 in a highly competitive game in Treviso on Saturday night.
The Italian side followed up their neighbours Zebre Parma’s historic win over the Sharks by making it two from two this weekend against South African sides and continued the poor form of local franchises while on tour in Europe.
At the time of the loss only the Bulls had won away from home from all of the South African sides, as the coastal franchises continued to struggle without their Springbok players.
Benetton though, were full value for their victory and followed up their win over the Lions last week and Cardiff in week one of the championship to remain unbeaten for the season.
Their other game resulted in a draw with Munster, showing the Italian team are not easy-beats by a long shot and certainly have laid down a marker in this year’s competition.
But the Stormers will have a lot of questions about their own performance, from game management to missed kicks as they struggled to contain the Italian side in front of a partisan home crowd.
While Jean-Luc du Plessis missed a few early kicks, the decision to turn down penalties in front of posts in the second half was also inexplicable and contributed to the Stormers making life a lot harder for themselves than it could have been.
More than that, there are some genuine questions about the form of some players, including marquee players such as Warrick Gelant and Joseph Dweba, both who made some crucial errors during the game while the Stormers lineout was never on song either. – SuperSport
