Benetton Rugby team to face Dragons

Aug 31 • General News, Guinness Pro14 • 1372 Views • Comments Off on Benetton Rugby team to face Dragons

Benetton Rugby will begin a new Guinness PRO14 season tomorrow at Rodney Parade in Newport against the Dragons.

The match will start at 19.35 local time (20.35 Italian time) and will be directed by Irish referee George Clancy and assistants Frank Murphy and Simon Rees.

The previous matches between the two teams have resulted in 7 wins for Dragons and 9 for Benetton Rugby. Last year Kieran Crowley’s men secured a double over the Welsh region.

In the pre-season, the Lions won two of three friendly matches played, against Leicester Tigers and Zebre Rugby Club.

These are the 23 Lions that will take the field.

Full back will be Jayden Hayward, on the wings Ratuva Tavuyara and Monty Ioane. Tommaso Benvenuti and Alberto Sgarbi will be respectively right and left centre.

The half backs are Tito Tebaldi at scrum half and Tommaso Allan at fly-half.

The front row will consist of Federico Zani, Hame Faiva and Tiziano Pasquali.

Locks will be Alessandro Zanni and captain Dean Budd. Finally, the back row sees Abraham Steyn, Sebastian Negri and Marco Barbini completing the XV chosen by Crowley.

Benetton Rugby:

15 Jayden Hayward, 14 Ratuva Tavuyara, 13 Tommaso Benvenuti, 12 Alberto Sgarbi, 11 Monty Ioane, 10 Tommaso Allan, 9 Tito Tebaldi, 8 Marco Barbini, 7 Sebastian Negri, 6 Abraham Steyn, 5 Dean Budd (C), 4 Alessandro Zanni, 3 Tiziano Pasquali, 2 Hame Faiva, 1 Federico Zani.

Substitutions: 16 Engjel Makelara, 17 Derrick Appiah, 18 Simone Ferrari, 19 Marco Fuser, 20 Federico Ruzza, 21 Marco Lazzaroni, 22 Giorgio Bronzini, 23 Tommaso Iannone

Head Coach: Kieran Crowley

Unavailable: Tomas Baravalle, Luca Bigi, Ignacio Brex, Andrea Bronzini, Dewaldt Duvenage, Angelo Esposito, Ornel Gega, Edoardo Gori, Nasi Manu, Luca Morisi, Giovanni Pettinelli, Nicola Quaglio, Marco Riccioni, Cherif Traore, Marco Zanon

Referee: George Clancy (IRFU) Assistant Referees: Frank Murphy (IRFU), Simon Rees (WRU)

Citing Commissioner: Dennis Jones (WRU)

TMO: Sean Brickell (WRU)

Live coverage of the game in Italy on live streaming on DAZN on www.dazn.com. Live text coverage of the game on www.benettonrugby.it on Benetton Rugby twitter account with the official game hashtag #DRAvBEN.