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Straight after the game, the 19-19 draw with the Dragons felt like a defeat. With a cooler head, Cristian Lovisetto sums it up in one line: looking at the stats, those two points are pure gold. Had it been a boxing match, the Welsh might have won on points.
Tackling: Benetton’s real problem
The defence already looked too passive live, and the numbers confirm it. According to OnRugby, Benetton missed 28 tackles out of 110, a success rate of just 66%, while the Dragons beat 28 defenders and made 7 line breaks.
The defensive system is still hard to read: sometimes the line rushed up, sometimes it waited, in more or less the same situations. And when you defend by waiting, missed tackles don’t come from positioning but from being slow: the opponent runs over you, or you don’t get there. Then the gaps open, and going backwards it’s hard to fix.
Out of breath after 25 minutes
The slowness has an explanation: fitness. At the 25th minute, during a break in play, many Benetton players already had hands on hips or knees, while the Welsh looked only a little tired. Probably the result of a heavy pre-season, with form still to come. Manuel Zuliani, back after shoulder surgery at the end of April, was the clearest case.
Wayne Pivac’s plan was visible in the first half: a solid scrum and lineout and a game built on ball carriers. But the most involved carriers ran out of steam early, and Ratave, forced to go looking for the ball in midfield, was studied and contained.
Centres and leadership: what are Treviso missing?
The centres looked disjointed, which was predictable: in two years Tommaso Menoncello, Brex and Fekitoa have all left. François Mey has already shown he can exploit space, and Leonardo Marin is still to come.
Heavier still is the leadership gap. Without Lamaro, the Cannone brothers, Garbisi and Rhyno Smith, and after the summer’s departures and retirements (Tomás Gallo, Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, Eli Snyman, Scott Scrafton), Ruzza was almost the only reference point left on the pitch. When the oxygen runs out, you need something to hold on to. On Friday there wasn’t much.
A day for the legends
For us, it was a below-par performance. And it hurts more because of the day it came on: through the Heritage project, around two hundred former players and their relatives returned to the Monigo pitch at half-time. We saw Alessandro Troncon and many others alongside today’s players, with Menoncello back from Toulouse.
In front of its own history, in my view, Treviso had to spill blood on the pitch.
Looking ahead to Benetton v Connacht
On Friday 2 October at 20:45 Connacht come to Monigo, beaten at home by the Stormers in round one but always awkward. For us it’s a step up from the Dragons and a balanced game: with a full squad Treviso would win, but it’s unlikely everyone will be available on Friday. The fitness of those who went off early, such as Ferrari and captain Negri, stopped by a back problem, also needs checking. If the Dragons performance is repeated, there’s a real risk of losing.
Read also
- Benetton 19-19 Dragons: three tries, then nothing. Pivac’s work in progress
- What Zebre are missing: a lineout to rebuild and a scrum that holds
- Italy v South Africa revisited: a 10-minute blackout and an Erasmus-style maul
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