Whatever happens in the final weeks of the Pro14 season, Benetton have done enough this season to allow us to believe in Italian rugby again.

The Italian franchise lie in third place of this week's matches in the Pro14, right at the heart of a three-way battle for the two play-off spots in Conference B along Ulster and Edinburgh.

Benetton have never made it to the knockout stages, their best finish until now coming a year ago when the team from Treviso recorded an 11-win season - the same number of wins produced across the previous three campaigns.

Kieran Crowley, a Rugby World Cup winner with New Zealand in 1987, was enlisted to carry out an overhaul after eight years with the Canadian national team.

"The first year when I arrived, we had a couple of wins towards the end which were starting to show some of the changes we were making," Crowley tells the Telegraph.

"Last year that improved, but people possibly thought it was a flash in the pan. To back it up this season, people are starting to now realise that our systems and producing more consistent efforts.

"We are still not where we need to be, but away from home we are more consistent. We used to get fairly good thrashings on the road and then be competitive at home. Now we can compete everywhere."