WASTEFUL EDINBURGH PUNISHED BY ITALIANS

EDINBURGH’S fine start to the season came to a crashing halt last night as they suffered a controversial home defeat to Benetton.

Despite the unfancied Italians collapsing the scrum four times in a row and having two men sin-binned in the final moments, Irish referee David Wilkinson refused to award a penalty try and the visitors held on for victory.

Two first-half tries from Chris Dean looked to have put Richard Cockerill’s men on easy street but an error-strewn display allowed Benetton back into the match.

A double from Angelo Esposito helped put the Italians in front, only for Edinburgh to lay siege to their line near the end winning scrum after scrum.

But the ref, roundly booed at the final whistle, refused to penalise the visitors other than issue two yellow cards. This was a huge setback for Cockerill after his team had won their first two games.

Benetton celebrated their first win of the season after arriving at Myreside more in hope than expectation. The Italians had the worst possible start when Tommaso Allan, the former Scotland Under-20 player who switched allegiances to Italy, had to go off injured in the first minute.

Duncan Weir had a great chance to open the scoring but pulled his relatively easy penalty wide.

The fly-half redeemed himself with a superb try-saving tackle when he sprinted back to stop winger Tommaso Benvenuti just short of the try-line.

Edinburgh took the lead when Robbie Fruean linked with fellow centre Dean, who ran on to score. Weir put over the conversion from out on the touchline.

Dean doubled his total after some fine disciplined attacking play from the hosts, Weir putting over yet another tricky conversion. Benetton gained a foothold when winger Esposito scored a try under the posts, with Ian McKinley putting over the conversion.

The Italian outfit had hooker Engjel Makelara sin-binned for pulling down the ruck with six minutes of the half left.

Jason Harries dropped the ball with the line at his mercy before the visitors snatched a penalty from McKinley to cut the deficit to just four points at the break.

Damien Hoyland botched an easy try-scoring chance when he failed to find Blair Kinghorn with the final pass, the ball bouncing low into touch. And things got worse for the home side when captain Magnus Bradbury was sin-binned after kicking the ball out of the ruck. That gave McKinley an easy penalty to convert.

The Italian side went ahead when Esposito got his second try of the match after Harries left him with acres of space out on the wing. McKinley did well to put over the conversion from out wide.

Weir cut the deficit with a penalty before Cockerill decided to bring on five replacements within two minutes to try to turn the tide.

Both the home crowd and the Edinburgh players were becoming frustrated at the visitors’ attempts to slow the game down whenever they could.

With 15 minutes left, Edinburgh turned down a penalty which would have seen them draw level in favour of a kick to the corner.

It was a brave but wrong call as Benetton managed to clear their lines. Mistakes started to creep into the home side’s play as the minutes ticked past.

With nine minutes left, Cockerill could take no more and left his seat in the stand to prowl the touchline in anger and frustration.

Cockerill’s presence made little difference as Edinburgh couldn’t make their late pressure pay off.