Guinness PRO12: Leinster struggle past Treviso

Leinster's Joe Carbery scores his second of the night

Joey Carbery scored two tries in his first start for Leinster as they opened their season with a subdued 20-8 win over Benetton Treviso.

The 20-year-old Academy fly-half thrilled the RDS crowd with two first-half touchdowns, though Marco Fuser's 37th-minute try kept Treviso in the hunt with at 15-5 down.

Leinster never hit the heights of last May's 50-19 thrashing of the Italians, but replacement hooker James Tracy settled the result with a well-taken effort from a maul seven minutes from the end.

The hosts initially stormed out of the blocks, with man-of-the-match Carbery cutting through to score under the posts with less than three minutes played.

A missed penalty attempt from debutant Tommaso Allan, coupled with the unfortunate loss of captain Alessandro Zanni to injury, saw Treviso scoreless throughout a listless first quarter.

It took another moment of magic from Carbery to lift the excitement level. Treviso failed to convert set-piece pressure into points, and following a turnover by Josh van der Flier, Carbery broke clear from his own half and jinked away from the covering Jayden Hayward to cross in the left corner.

Fergus McFadden was unable to add to his earlier conversion but knocked over a penalty for a 15-0 advantage before a smart break by Allan eventually led to second rower Fuser stretching over to the left of the posts. Allan missed the conversion to leave his side trailing 15-5 at the break.

An increasing amount of penalties conceded by Leinster early in the second half allowed Kieran Crowley's charges to draw closer through Allan's right boot in the 52nd minute, but scoring chances were hard to come by for both sides.

Leinster's replacements, including debutants Andrew Porter, Jamison Gibson Park and Rory O'Loughlin, finally had the last say of the game, as a maul from the edge of the 22 led to Tracy's try.

A bonus-point push came late on, but O'Loughlin was bundled into touch as Leinster were forced to come away with a slender win.