Dragons overpowered at home by Benetton

United Rugby Championship

Dragons (7) 21

Tries: Westwood, Evans, Lewis-Hughes Cons: Evans 2, O'Brien

Benetton (10) 31

Tries: Bernasconi, Avaca, Manfredix, Cannone Cons: Umaga 2, Albornoz Pen: Umaga

Dragons slipped to fourth successive United Rugby Championship (URC) defeat as Benetton secured a bonus-point win at Rodney Parade.

A Jacob Umaga penalty was the difference at half-time after Joe Westwood and Bautista Bernasconi exchanged tries.

But Benetton's forwards dominated after the break with scores from Enzo Avaca, Marco Manfredi and Lorenzo Cannone.

Lloyd Evans crossed for Dragons before a late effort from Shane Lewis-Hughes, but it was not enough to salvage a losing bonus-point.

Both sides had similar records coming into the game with just the one win after four rounds.

Dragons had the slight upper-hand in the opening half, but both defences stood their ground and forced handling errors.

The tackling was ferocious and such was the force of Ryan Woodman’s hit on Ignacio Mendy, the Argentine winger was forced to leave the pitch early.

Benetton were reduced to 14 players on the 16th minute when Bernasconi was yellow carded for dangerous clear out on Rhodri Williams who was unceremoniously catapulted back on his 150th league appearance.

It might have been a red card, but referee Peter Martin said the shoulder to head contact had been indirect.

With a man advantage, Dragons found more room and the returning Jarrod Rosser and Rio Dyer enjoyed space to attack, though could not find a scoring pass.

But Westwood read a pass perfectly from inside his own 22 and sprinted 80 metres to the try line, just before the hour, with Louis Lynagh in hot pursuit.

Back to full strength, Benetton's pack that included six Italy internationals, asserted their dominance at the scrum.

They won a penalty, kicked to the corner and there was to be no stopping a 13-man rolling maul, with Bernasconi emerging under the pile of bodies over the try-line.

Benetton then took the lead on the stroke of half-time with Umaga kicking a penalty after Dragons were penalised for offside.

Benetton extended their lead after the break; after an exchange of kicks, Williams failed to gather under pressure with the ball bouncing off his chest and into the grateful hands of prop Avaca, who shrugged off a weak Evans tackle to the line.

The home crowd voiced their disapproval on the hit which forced Williams to spill the ball, but they were soon celebrating when Angus O’Brien orchestrated a well-worked attack which forced the covering Tommaso Menoncello to slide into touch.

And despite an overthrown five metre lineout, Evans was alert and charged through the hole in the defence to bring the Dragons back to within a score.

But Benetton's pack halted the comeback with two tries from set pieces. The first off a rolling maul as Manfredi picked up from the base of the ruck and sniped over.

The second came from Benetton’s dominant scrum and there was a sense of inevitability as it edged towards the try line before Cannone bagged the bonus-point with just over 10 minutes to play.

Dragons showed fighting spirit with Lewis-Hughes crossing from close range, under the watchful eye of Wales head coach Warren Gatland who names his squad for the autumn internationals on Monday.

But with the damage done early in the second half, Dragons left the game empty handed.

Dragons head coach Dai Flanagan said: "We played a good team tonight, they came with a plan and they executed the plan really well.

"It's interesting how teams come here now and kick a lot more than we're previewing, so we have got to find out why teams are playing that way against us, what they are seeing."

Flanagan said he was happy with the first half defensive effort.

"To keep them at zero for 30 plus minutes, but it was two errors then that gave them 10 points and that's our full control and arguably the game, we lost by 10 points.

"For all the progress we want results here, we want to turn a corner and win a lot more, and currently we haven't."

Dragons: Angus O’Brien; Rio Dyer, Joe Westwood, Aneurin Owen, Jared Rosser; Lloyd Evans, Rhodri Williams; Rodrigo Martinez, Brodie Coghlan, Leon Brown, Shane Lewis-Hughes, Ben Carter (capt), Ryan Woodman, Harri Keddie, Taine Basham.

Replacements: Oli Burrows, Cameron Jones, Chris Coleman, Steve Cummins, Dan Lydiate, Dane Blacker, Steff Hughes, Ewan Rosser.

Benetton: Matt Gallagher; Ignacio Mendy, Tommaso Menoncello, Ignacio Brex, Louis Lynagh; Jacob Umaga, Andy Uren; Thomas Gallo, Bautista Bernasconi, Enzo Avaca, Niccolo Cannone, Federico Ruzza, Alessandro Izekor, Michele Lamaro (capt), Lorenzo Cannone.

Replacements: Marco Manfredi, Destiny Aminu, Riccardo Genovese, Eli Snyman, Manuel Zuliani, Alessandro Garbisi, Tomas Albornoz, Malakai Fekitoa.

Sin-bin: Bernasconi (16)

Referee: Peter Martin (IRFU)

Assistant referees: Ben Breakspear & Gareth Newman (WRU)

TMO: Colin Stanley (IRFU)