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Mbanda on the mark as Zebre double up against Benetton
By PA
Antonio Rizzi’s two penalties in the last eight minutes helped Zebre to a 22-18 Guinness PRO14 win over Benetton, whose second-half fightback at the Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi was in vain in the Italian derby.
Benetton led 6-3, thanks to Paolo Garbisi’s two penalties, but were unable to exact revenge for their 24-15 defeat to the same opponents a week ago.
Michelangelo Biondelli crossed the whitewash shortly before the interval to put Zebre out in front and although the conversion was missed, Carlo Canna’s second penalty of the game plus Maxime Mbanda’s 52nd-minute try gave the hosts a 16-6 lead.
Benetton roared back just after the hour mark to set up a thrilling finale. Gianmarco Lucchesi and Michele Lamaro touched down within three minutes of each other and Garbisi’s conversion of the latter effort meant Benetton held an 18-16 lead with a quarter of an hour to go.
But former Benetton fly-half Rizzi held his nerve to split the posts to hand Zebre the slimmest of advantages before giving them some breathing room, and ultimately ensuring victory, by booting another penalty three minutes from time.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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