Guinness PRO14 Friday wrap: Wins for Cardiff Blues and Edinburgh
Saturday 29 September 2018 01:04, UK
Cardiff Blues and Edinburgh Rugby both were narrow victors on Friday evening in the Guinness PRO14.
The Blues denied their South African opponents a maiden win of their new season while Edinburgh's result means that they move off the bottom of Conference B.
Cardiff Blues 24-21 Toyota Cheetahs
Cardiff Blues overturned an 11-point deficit in the final quarter to nick a narrow 24-21 victory over their visitors to Cardiff Arms Park.
After Ray Lee-Lo's try opened the scoring for the Blues, Cheetahs built a 21-10 lead with tries from Walt Steenkamp, Sibhale Maxwane and Benhard Janse van Rensburg with Tian Schoeman converting all three.
Blues responded with late tries from Lloyd Williams and Olly Robinson, with Gareth Anscombe adding three conversions and a penalty.
After last week's impressive and emphatic 37-13 win over Munster, the Blues faithful must have expected more of the same as they faced the Cheetahs but the South African side proved hugely difficult to suppress.
Buoyed by last week's 39-39 draw with Ulster, Cheetahs' pack matched their opponents and Blues' star centre pairing of Willis Halaholo and Lee-Lo were mostly kept in check.
In the end, it took a crucial try from Robinson to make sure that the Welsh region secured back-to-back wins in the competition.
Edinburgh Rugby 31-30 Benetton Rugby
Edinburgh moved away from the bottom of the Guinness PRO14 Conference B table with a tense 31-30 win over a battling Benetton side.
As had been the case in their previous home match, Edinburgh failed to capitalise on lengthy spells of pressure, particularly in the first half, meaning that they never quite managed to shake off the determined visitors.
The Scottish outfit scored tries through Matt Scott, Duhan van der Merwe, Blair Kinghorn and Dougie Fife, all converted by Simon Hickey who also booted a penalty.
Benetton had an early Tommaso Allan penalty plus tries from Luca Sperandio and Marco Fuser - the latter converted by Allan - to show for their first-half efforts.
Sperandio added two more before Marco Barbini scrambled over to set up a frantic finale, and they could have taken more than just two bonus points had they been successful with any one of four missed conversions.
