The general director of the green and whites: “The team gave everything in Pretoria. The market? A couple more arrivals and we’ll be good to go.”
Benetton, Pavanello: “Best Celtic tournament ever. The Bulls? I have more regrets about Gloucester” ph. Sebastiano Pessina
“Our best Celtic tournament ever? Yes, I would say yes” begins Antonio Pavanello, general director of Benetton Rugby, to the microphones of La Tribuna di Treviso, outlining a summary of the green and whites’ last season.
“Since URC has been here we have never been to the playoffs. Since 2019, the year of the first time, the level of competition has risen significantly. Furthermore, we reached the semi-final of the Challenge Cup again. The season was extremely positive” said Pavanello.
The defeats that sting, obviously, are the last ones: in Gloucester in the semi-final of the Challenge Cup and in Pretoria in the quarter-finals of the URC against the Bulls. However, two very different matches, as Pavanello underlines: “The way the cup match ended hurts more, a match where we didn’t express our best and were far from perfect, while in South Africa the team honestly really gave everything” .
Read also: URC: Ratave and Menoncello among the best in the quarter-final statistics
“Everyone thought we were done for, they said we would get 40 or 50 points, but instead we shook the Loftus Stadium and if we had been more careful for a moment we would have been in the URC semi-finals” said the general manager.
Next year there will also be the Champions Cup: “A tournament where important physical and mental resources will be invested and where every mistake can cost you a defeat. I appreciated the Challenge because it helped give us confidence, because winning helps you win, but we need to be realistic and ready to take the next step, trying to understand what space we can have among the best European clubs who, there’s no point in hiding it, are still very far away from us. Well, maybe we hope to be lucky in the draws.”
Read also: URC: Alessandro Izekor wins a prestigious individual award
Finally, a comment on the transfer market: “A couple more arrivals and we’ll be fine. Perhaps we will intervene again in October-November, a favorable period for us, we look at what is happening in the southern hemisphere, often fishing for elements that want to assert themselves”.
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