Benetton Treviso are a team who fly very much in the face of the notion that ‘the clothes make the man’. While the club’s shirts have usually been rather lovely, the same can’t be said about their on-field performances, even if they have generally been the best of the two Italian Pro12 teams (very much a tallest midget situation).
In the last 12 months, things have taken a particularly steep nosedive for a team who looked like they might be on an upward curve a season or two ago – at time of writing, they haven’t won a competitive game since February last year. No, that wasn’t a typo, you have to go all the way back to their 40-24 victory over the Blues on 20 February 2015 for the last time Treviso finished on the winning team.
So, next time you get frustrated about how shit your team is, imagine what it must be like to be a Benetton Treviso fan, and console yourself. Unless you are a Treviso fan, of course, in which case you have our sincerest sympathies…
As bad as the team have been on the field then, in an act of weird inverse proportionality, the 2015/16 Treviso home shirt from new supplier Kappa happens to be absolutely gorgeous. Typical.
As we’ve mentioned in the past, the club’s basic colour scheme is a pretty strong start point – light green and white looks great, and even more so when its rendered in our old favourite the hoop.
This year’s design has eschewed the fully hooped design of the last few seasons, opting instead for a half and half look that we think actually works even better than before. Theres a bit of over-sponsoring on the top half of the shirt and against the hoops, it might all look a bit cluttered, but by keeping it plain green, the sponsors fit into the design a lot better and it doesn’t feel like too much is going on.
Kappa have produced some lovely shirts this season – they are one of the more consistently stylish brands out there, which is entirely appropriate for an Italian firm! The Treviso home design is no exception. It’s a gorgeous, classic-looking shirt that deserves far better than the product that’s being put on the field wearing it right now!
Rugby Shirt Watch 