Cockerill left fuming by sloppy second half

BENETTON caused a shock to earn their first win of the season against Edinburgh on Friday night.

And given that the Italians are not known for their away successes, Edinburgh head coach Richard Cockerill was an angry man afterwards.

“We were simply not good enough and we paid the penalty,” the former Leicester Tigers and Toulon boss said.

“We were 14-0 up and then sat back while in the second half we tried to force too many things and made stupid errors.”

Edinburgh took the lead in the 20th minute when a lovely delayed pass by Kiwi centre partner Robbie Fruean put Dean in for a try. Weir converted.

The hosts had their tails up at that point and five minutes later Dean again was the man on the end of a good move for his second try with Weir converting.

Winger Angelo Esposito did get Benetton on the board with a converted try just before the half hour mark, but then hooker Engjel Makelara was yellow carded for pulling down a maul.

Edinburgh thought they had scored their third try of the first half in the 35th minute, but winger Jason Harries knocked on over the line.

And Benetton cut the gap to four with an Ian McKinley penalty just before the interval.

That gave them hope and they started the second half well, leading to Edinburgh skipper Magnus Bradbury being sin-binned for kicking aball in a ruck.

Stand-off McKinley kicked a penalty and then in the 52nd minute Esposito glided in at the corner for his second try. With McKinley’s conversion it was 20-14.

Three minutes later Weir kicked a penalty for Edinburgh to close the gap and then Bradbury returned to the action.

The game then became a forward orientated battle, the Italians losing replacement Cherif Traore to the sin bin in the 74th minute as Edinburgh went searching for the winning try.

A series of scrum penalties then saw prop Alberto De Marchi yellow carded, but a knock on after 80 minutes by Edinburgh gave Benetton a famous win which they just about deserved for their battling qualities.