Jevon Groves’ late try rescued a 25-25 draw for Newport Gwent Dragons, denying Zebre a fourth ever victory in the RaboDirect PRO12 in the process.

Groves dotted down with three minutes to go – Jason Tovey converting – to level the scores after a Luciano Orquera penalty on 72 minutes had given the hosts a 25-18 lead.

It’s the second time Zebre have drawn this season and while they remain at the bottom of the RaboDirect PRO12 table, they have pulled level on 20 points with fellow Italians Treviso.

After a scoreless opening 20 minutes at the Stadio XXV Aprile the floodgates were opened by Samuela Vunisa who ran over to give Zebre the lead.

An Orquera conversion was enough to ensure Zebre maintained their lead after Dragons’ Tovey was unable to convert Dan Evans’ try on 26 minutes.

Gonzalo Garcia gave Zebre a five-point lead with a penalty on 32 minutes but an Ashley Smith try and a Tovey conversion gave Newport Gwent Dragons the lead for the first time in the match.

The Dragons then extended their lead five minutes later when Tovey added a penalty to make it 10-15.

But Orquera responded with a penalty of his own just before the break to put Zebre within two at half-time.

After going down to Leinster in their last outing Zebre were already performing infinitely better and threatening to claim their second win over a Welsh side in a month.

The Italian side had beaten Cardiff Blues 15-10 at the start of March and, as Orquera added another penalty after the break, it looked like they might be able to claim their fourth win of the season.

A missed Tovey penalty gave the home side even greater cause for optimism but the 24-year-old made amends minutes later with a 54th-minute penalty.

But Zebre weren’t out of it and Orquera added a hat-trick of penalties in 15 minutes to give the Italians their biggest lead since the opening try.

With the clock winding down Zebre must have thought they had done enough but Groves ran over on 77 minutes and Tovey kept his cool to level the scores.

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