The Lions hosted Benetton at Ellis Park and suffered their fourth loss in a row to their Italian visitors. Benetton scored fifteen unanswered points in the final ten minutes of the match to secure a 26-18 win.
The match was a tightly contested encounter, with Benetton building on their past successes against the Lions to secure another victory. While the Lions showed improved discipline and high tempo, they were unable to overcome the Italian side.
Benetton showed early on that they came to play, and Rhyno Smith scored the first try of the match following sustained phase play to lead 05-00 after six minutes of play.
Two minutes later, Benetton was penalised for not rolling away, and Chris Smith converted to cut Benetton’s lead to 05-03.
Jacob Umaga converted a penalty to extend Benetton’s lead to 08-03 following 15 minutes of play in the first half.
With three minutes left to play Kelly Mpeku collected a grubber from Quan Horn to score. Chris Smith converted to put the Lions 10-08 in the lead for the first time of the match.
The Lions started the second half like a house on fire, and Ruan Venter came around the corner to crash over the try line. Chris Smith made no mistake with the conversion to extend the Lions' lead to 15-07.
After sixteen minutes of play, Chris Smith added anorther penalty conversion to extend the Lions' lead to 18-07.
Tomas Albornoz converted a long distance penalty to cut the Lions lead to 18-10 with twenty minutes still to play.
Thereafter, Benetton took control, and Leonardo Marin scored two tries to secure a
Teams:
Lions: 15 Quan Horn, 14 Kelly Mpeku, 13 Erich Cronje, 12 Bronson Mills, 11 Eduan Keyter, 10 Chris Smith, 9 Morne van den Berg, 8 Francke Horn (c), 7 Ruan Venter, 6 Jarod Cairns, 5 Reinhard Nothnagel, 4 Etienne Oosthuizen, 3 Asenathi Ntlabakanye, 2 Franco Marais, 1 SJ Kotze. Replacements: 16 Morne Brandon, 17 Edward Davids, 18 RF Schoeman, 19 Darrien Landsberg, 20 Renzo du Plessis, 21 Nico Steyn, 22 Richard Kriel, 23 Gianni Lombard.
Benetton: 15 Rhyno Smith, 14 Louis Lynagh, 13 Tommaso Menoncello, 12 Leonardo Marin, 11 Ignacio Mendy, 10 Jacob Umaga, 9 Andy Uren, 8 Alessandro Izekor, 7 Michele Lamaro (c), 6 Manuel Zuliani, 5 Eli Snyman, 4 Niccolo Cannone, 3 Simone Ferrari, 2 Bautista Bernasconi, 1 Thomas Gallo. Replacements: 16 Nicholas Gasperini, 17 Mirco Spagnolo, 18 Giosue Zilocchi, 19 Federico Ruzza, 20 So’otala Fa’aso’o, 21 Riccardo Favretto, 22 Alessandro Garbisi, 23 Tomas Albornoz.