Late penalty seals Benetton win against Cardiff

Harri Millard has featured more on the wing this season but played at centre against Benetton

United Rugby Championship

Benetton (17) 20

Tries: Albornoz, Penalty try Cons: Albornoz Pens: Albornoz 2

Cardiff (14) 19

Tries: Botham, Bevan, Lloyd Cons: Sheedy 2

Benetton fly-half Tomas Albornoz kicked a 77th minute penalty to dent Cardiff's hopes of a United Rugby Championship (URC) play-off place.

Albornoz produced a 15-point performance as Benetton lifted themselves to seventh in the table and into the top eight play-off places.

Despite tries from James Botham, Ellis Bevan and Evan Lloyd, Cardiff have slipped to ninth after only picking up a losing bonus-point in Treviso.

Matt Sherratt's men fell on the wrong side of Scottish referee Hollie Davidson with three yellow cards shown to Ben Donnell, Rory Jennings and Cameron Winnett and 15 penalties conceded.

With four rounds of regular matches remaining, there is no Welsh side in the top half of the table but it remains tight in the battle to finish in the top eight.

Strong Cardiff start but Benetton battle back

Lock Teddy Williams captained Cardiff as one of six changes made by head coach Sherratt from the 20-17 victory against Lions, while Benetton were without Italy centre Tommaso Menoncello due to injury.

Botham opened the scoring after early visitors' pressure before Albornoz responded with a penalty.

Cardiff centre Jennings was the architect of the second score with a fine break before his inside pass to the supporting Bevan.

Albornoz secured the hosts' opening try after Benetton pierced the Cardiff midfield.

Cardiff lock Donnell was shown a yellow card for head contact on Benetton full-back Rhyno Smith. While it looked inconclusive that Donnell had initiated head contact, he could have been sin-binned for interfering with a quick tap free-kick.

Flanker Thomas was outstanding in defence as Cardiff initially held firm with 14 men.

But just after they were restored to a full complement, Cardiff soon lost another player when Jennings was sent to the sin-bin for bringing down a Benetton maul with a penalty try also awarded as the hosts led 17-14 at half-time.

Tale of two kicks

It was an error-strewn second half played in wet conditions.

Benetton number eight Toa Halafihi spurned a golden chance when he inexplicably spilled possession with the Cardiff line looming.

Cardiff were also struggling to contain Benetton wing Ignacio Mendy but the hosts failed to capitalise on their dominance.

The visitors demonstrated a clinical edge when hooker Lloyd forced his way over in a rare foray into the Benetton 22.

Cardiff fly-half Sheedy crucially missed the conversion with Albornoz slotting over the winning kick.

Cardiff could not gain that elusive final opportunity with full-back Winnett shown a late yellow card for a deliberate knock-on.

Cardiff head coach Matt Sherratt: "The difference in the game was the penalty count.

"We have conceded 15 compared to Benetton's eight and we have had three yellow cards, so it is always then going to be an uphill task.

"We are never going to come away from home and get 50-50 decisions here and we certainly didn't.

"You had the TMO coming in for things and stopping the game for no reason, in my opinion.

"We still gave ourselves a chance to win but could not quite get over the line."

Line-ups

Benetton: Rhyno Smith; Ignacio Mendy, Malakai Fekitoa, Ignacio Brex, Paolo Odogwu; Tomas Albornoz, Andy Uren; Thomas Gallo, Bautista Bernasconi, Giosué Zilocchi, Scott Scrafton, Eli Snyman (capt), Riccardo Favretto, Manuel Zuliani, Toa Halafihi.

Replacements: Siua Maile, Mirco Spagnolo, Simone Ferrari, Niccolò Cannone, Federico Ruzza, Michele Lamaro, Alessandro Garbisi, Jacob Umaga

Cardiff Rugby: Cam Winnett; Gabriel Hamer-Webb, Harri Millard, Rory Jennings, Regan Grace; Callum Sheedy, Ellis Bevan; Danny Southworth, Evan Lloyd, Rhys Litterick, Ben Donnell, Teddy Williams (capt), James Botham, Dan Thomas, Alun Lawrence.

Replacements: Dafydd Hughes, Corey Domachowski, Joe Cowell, Rory Thornton, Alex Mann, Thomas Young, Johan Mulder, Ben Thomas.

Sin-bin: Donnell (28), Jennings (40), Winnett (78)

Referee: Hollie Davidson (Scotland)

Assistant referees: Filippo Russo (Italy), Darlo Merli (Italy)

TMO: Andrew McMenemy (Scotland)