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We could wrap this up with “fair enough”. Benetton made lots of mistakes, missed tackles, never really got over the gain line, and Connacht won 22-19 at Monigo by making fewer errors. Fair enough, then. But: if a yellow card had come after yet another scrum won on the five-metre line, for us this game would have ended differently.
The yellow card that never came
The key moment is the long series of scrums right on the Irish line, with Treviso 19-17 up and the game there to be closed out. Put-in after put-in the Benetton pack pushed, Connacht gave way and referee Hollie Davidson ordered a reset. For about ten minutes.
The point isn’t to settle the scrum by decree: scrums are there to push, and we love them. The point is consistency. The law provides a card for repeated infringement, and usually there’s a warning to the captain first, the classic “that’s the last one”. If instead you think the attacking side isn’t using the ball, you penalise them. Ordering seven or eight resets, washing your hands like Pontius Pilate, isn’t a solution. Safety matters too: Tiziano Pasquali, in his first game, went off helped by the medics, and all those scrums in a row probably didn’t help him.
Connacht had already received a yellow before half-time, Finlay Bealham for head contact on Matias Medrano. For that series of scrums, though, nothing.
No one will convince me otherwise: if they give a yellow there, you win it.
Of course, Treviso could also have scored from that pressure: Leonardo Marin got within inches and was held up. That’s the sliding-doors moment. Then, late on, Connacht struck on the counter with Ciarán Frawley’s second try: a mistake born of fatigue rather than lack of will, which is never in question.
Why is Benetton’s tackling so poor?
Because they don’t go forward. Without ball carriers able to cross the gain line, Treviso run into a wall, give the ball back and spend a lot of time defending. Benetton finished with an 84% tackle success rate according to RugbyPass, around ten points lower than Connacht, who defended a huge amount and almost flawlessly.
Individual errors did the rest: a Jacob Umaga kick that could have meant an attacking lineout, a few high balls lost. And it’s telling that two of the three tries came from the maul, with Bautista Bernasconi’s double. The only one from structured play was a rehearsed move, with Paolo Garbisi involved and Marin’s explosiveness at the end. But to pull that off you need to be on the front foot. Wayne Pivac’s rugby starts from the fundamentals, and if the first one, going forward, is missing, the whole castle starts to crumble.
A draw, a defeat and an uphill fixture list
Two home games, one draw and one defeat. Now Benetton go on the road: on Saturday 10 October at 18:30 they visit the Scarlets, then open their Challenge Cup campaign in Castres on the 18th before returning to Monigo on the 24th against Glasgow. The Scarlets aren’t the side of the Pivac era, but at home they remain a tough nut to crack.
Without being catastrophic, the risk is reaching the derby without a win. This Benetton will grow and gradually find its shape, we’re convinced of that: everyone knew this would be that kind of year. Which doesn’t mean we enjoy losing.
A devastating scrum and Spagnolo’s return
The glimmer of hope is up front. The scrum was devastating and Simone Ferrari deserves a standing ovation: the live-stream chat voted him player of the week, ahead of Bernasconi too. The lineout went well as well.
Then there’s Mirco Spagnolo, welcome back to this level. In that long series of scrums, when Ferrari and Pasquali came off the pack went from dominant to even; with Spagnolo it started breaking through again. Seeing him paired with Ferrari bodes well for Benetton and for Italy. And Medrano, who arrived after Thomas Gallo’s departure, is a serious scrummager: for us, a good signing.
The flip side: Ferrari, who already wasn’t well last week, went off holding his ribs, and Pasquali had to be helped off. Lose pieces there too and it becomes a problem.
Centre and fly-half: the blanket is short
The biggest worry is elsewhere. Jacob Umaga has effectively played 160 minutes in two games and there’s no credible alternative in sight: Marin is needed at centre, to organise the defence and to develop for Italy, and the back-up at fly-half is Rhyno Smith, still raw, who made a few mistakes in his minutes. Among the individuals, Niccolò Cannone’s battling display stood out.
Work in progress, then. But with a scrum like this, there’s a base to build from.
Read also
- Benetton 19-19 Dragons: work in progress for Pivac
- Benetton’s draw revisited: tackling, fitness and leadership to rebuild
- Zebre 2026-27 squad, unit by unit
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