Cardiff’s European hopes were ended in a dramatic 38-35 defeat to Benetton in Italy, with their comeback falling agonisingly short.<\/p>\n
Having trailed by 21 points after 14 minutes, they rallied and nearly booked their place in the quarter-finals at the death – only for the chance of a winning try to go begging.<\/p>\n
Two tries from Jacob Beetham – his first for the club – as well as scores from Liam Belcher and Alun Lawrence had given them hope, but the club now turn their attention back to reaching the URC play-offs.<\/p>\n
The Blue and Blacks conceded their first try after just seven seconds, with Tomasso Menoncello capitalising on an error to score after Cardiff failed to gather the kick-off.<\/p>\n
Their second came after four minutes when Jacob Umaga sliced through the score.<\/p>\n
The Welsh side fought back, with captain Belcher forcing his way over after some industrious carries from the Cardiff pack.<\/p>\n
However, things would soon get worse.<\/p>\n
Prop Thomas Gallo powered over from close range, before Umaga scored his second after the home side ran the kick-off back.<\/p>\n
One-cap Wales international Beetham powered over for Cardiff’s second, only for Benetton to move further ahead after Onisi Ratave crossed out wide.<\/p>\n
Cardiff did at least end the half on a high. After Mason Grady and Ioan Lloyd went close, Alun Lawrence rumbled over on the stroke of half-time.<\/p>\n
There was another poor start to the second-half, with Menoncello running over the top of Callum Sheedy to score.<\/p>\n
However, Cardiff continued to work hard. Sheedy put Lawrence through a gap – with the No. 8 finding Bevan to score.<\/p>\n
A late no-arm hit on Lawrence in the build-up saw Umaga sin-binned.<\/p>\n
That yellow card proved crucial, with Cardiff scoring again while Benetton were down to 14 men.<\/p>\n
As the home side looked to run from deep, Beetham picked off Andy Uren’s pass for his second try.<\/p>\n
That reduced the gap to three points.<\/p>\n
Cardiff pushed for a winning score, with Rhys Barratt held up over the line four minutes from time.<\/p>\n
They continued to hammer away at the Benetton line until the death, but Alex Mann’s effort was just inches short of the line.<\/p>\n
The match ended in controversial fashion, with referee Kevin Bralley unwilling to check whether Cardiff had indeed grounded the ball for a winning score – instead penalising Cardiff captain Ben Thomas for arguing his point.<\/p>\n
Benetton: Rhyno Smith; Onisi Ratave, Tommaso Menoncello, Leonardo Marin, Ignacio Mendy; Jacob Umaga, Andy Uren; Thomas Gallo, Bautista Bernasconi, Giosue Zilocchi, Niccolo Cannone, Federico Ruzza, Manuel Zuliani, Michele Lamaro (capt), Lorenzo Cannone.<\/p>\n
Replacements: Siua Maile, Destiny Aminu, Tiziano Pasquali, Riccardo Favretto, So’otala Fa’aso’o, Alessandro Izekor, Alessandro Garbisi, Paolo Odogwu.<\/p>\n
Cardiff: Ioan Lloyd; Mason Grady, Elijah Evans, Ben Thomas, Jacob Beetham; Callum Sheedy, Ellis Bevan; Ed Byrne, Liam Belcher (capt), Keiron Assiratti, Evan Rees, Rory Thornton, Alex Mann, Dan Thomas, Alun Lawrence.<\/p>\n
Replacements: Dafydd Hughes, Rhys Barratt, Sam Wainwright, Lucas de la Rua, Evan Lloyd, Ieuan Davies, Rory Jennings, Cam Winnett.<\/p>\n
Referee: Kevin Bralley (France)<\/p>\n
Live updates:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardiff’s European hopes were ended in a dramatic 38-35 defeat to Benetton in Italy, with their comeback falling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[10579,124241,5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-513054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-cardiff-rugby","9":"tag-european-challenge-cup","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}