Benneton Treviso came agonisingly close to a huge upset in the European Champions Cup when they welcomed French giants Toulon to the Stadio Comunale di Monigo on Saturday afternoon.
Dubliner Ian McKinley - who was recently named in Conor O'Shea's provisional Italy squad for the Autumn internationals - kicked an impressive 19 points as Treviso bounced back from an awful start and managed to fight and stay in the game for the full 80 minutes.
McKinley looked to have secured an historic win for his side as he slotted a penalty to put the Italians ahead 29-27 as the clock neared 79 minutes...
Unfortunately, a knock on from the re-start gave Toulon one last chance to mount a push for the score that would win the game.
The resulting scrum went down twice, and Treviso were pinged for a penalty the second time which Francois Trinh-Duc kept his composure to make the kick and avoid a disaster for his side.
Heartbreak for Treviso, they can take pride in a great performance but will ultimately be gutted to lose by a single point when they had to hold out for one minute of play.
For us back in Ireland, it really is great to see Ian McKinley continue to go from strength to strength.
