![\"Darcy](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/\/87788e02-b4fb-40f4-ad67-0ba6ff5dde96.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAfter defending exceptionally well against Glasgow only to end up on the losing side twice, Edinburgh got the balance right in Treviso last night to pull off a morale-boosting victory.<\/p>\n
The defence was even better than it had been in the 1872 Cup double-header \u2014 as it had to be given the way Benetton fought back in the second half from a 15-0 deficit. The difference was that Sean Everitt\u2019s team did enough in attack to put their opponents under a lot more pressure than they did against the Warriors.<\/p>\n
It was still touch and go right until the death \u2014 unnecessarily so, after replacement fly half Cammy Scott had sent a penalty crashing back off an upright, allowing the home team to launch one last counterattack from their own line. But, if it was a close-run thing at the Stadio Monigo, it was nonetheless a well-merited win, bringing to an end a run of three defeats.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our attack intent was much better tonight,\u201d Everitt, the head coach, said. \u201cWe managed to put a lot of phases together. They put our lineout under pressure, but we had opportunities on attack and we defended bravely again. I thought our kicking game was good. There was a hell of a lot of character shown deep in the game as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes we struggle on attack, but we certainly do get a lot of things right. One of them is our character.\u201d<\/p>\n
That character was tested in the build-up to the game when Grant Gilchrist, the veteran lock, pulled out with a dead leg. Edinburgh have been plagued by injuries all season, and, with Duhan van der Merwe, Ewan Ashman, Dylan Richardson and Boan Venter all having been ruled out of the trip to Treviso, the loss of Gilchrist was just one more blow.<\/p>\n
However, the visitors showed no ill effects of all those absences in a first half that ended with them 10-0 up. After a scoreless opening quarter, Edinburgh eventually got their reward for some positive play when Ben Vellacott opened the scoring.<\/p>\n
A penalty in front of the home posts was tapped, and several phases later the scrum-half darted through a gap in the stretched defence. Ross Thompson converted. The fly half added a penalty to take his team\u2019s lead into double figures. Then Jacob Umaga missed a chance to reduce the deficit when he was wide with a long-range penalty. Benetton came close to breaking their duck in the opening stages of the second half. But as they got into a threatening position, a loose pass led to conceding again.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Graham\u2019s try early in the second half proved crucial for Edinburgh<\/p>\n
TIM ROGERS\/SHUTTERSTOCK<\/p>\n
Darcy Graham hacked the ball ahead twice, and although Leonardo Marin won the race to get there next time, the centre skidded in to send the ball behind his own line. That allowed Graham to touch down almost unopposed and make it 15-0.<\/p>\n
Benetton hit back when Thomas Gallo, the Argentine international, ploughed over after a tapped penalty five metres out. Umaga\u2019s conversion made it 7-15, and minutes later the fly half repeated the feat after Malakai Fekitoa scored his team\u2019s second try after further heavy pressure.<\/p>\n
With their lead rapidly reduced from 15 points to one, Edinburgh faced a severe test of character and of physical resilience. They would have faced a numerical test too had Liam McConnell been sent to the sin-bin for aerial contact, but the flanker was let off with just a penalty.<\/p>\n
The award went to touch and then Benetton launched a full frontal assault on the line \u2014 but after four or five charges, they were turned over. Then, with two-and-a-half minutes left, Harri Morris won a penalty deep inside his own half to deny the Italians again. Finally, Scott had that chance to end the game with a penalty in stoppage time, only for his failure to score to force his team into one last defensive effort.<\/p>\n
Scorers: Benetton: Tries<\/b> Gallo (52min), Fekitoa (57). Cons<\/b> Umaga 2. Edinburgh:<\/b> Tries<\/b> Vellacott (21), Graham (48). Pen<\/b> Thompson (29). Con <\/b>Thompson. <\/p>\n
Benetton<\/b> M Gallagher; L Lynagh, P Odogwu, L Marin (M Fekitoa 49), I Mendy; J Umaga, A Garbisi (A Uren 49); T Gallo (D Aminu 68), B Bernasconi (N Gasperini 55), S Ferrari (G Zilocchi 57), N Cannone (S Scrafton 67), E Snyman (R Favretto 61), A Izekor, M Lamaro (capt), R Favretto (S Fa\u2019aso\u2019o 52). <\/p>\n
Edinburgh<\/b> J Brown; D Graham, M Currie, J Lang (P O\u2019Conor 78), W Goosen; R Thompson (C Scott 66), B Vellacott (C Shiel 61); P Schoeman, H Morris, O Blyth-Lafferty (P Hill 46), G Young, C Hunter-Hill, T Dodd (L McConnell 60, C Boyle 74), F Douglas, M Bradbury (capt). <\/p>\n
Referee<\/b> P Martin (IRFU).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After defending exceptionally well against Glasgow only to end up on the losing side twice, Edinburgh got the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-672924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115835897909656919","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}