Cardiff resisted a stirring Zebre fightback to hang on for victory in their United Championship clash in Italy.
The Welsh side appeared on course for a comfortable win when Liam Belcher borrowed over for Cardiff's fourth try early in the second half to give them what seemed an unassailable lead.
However, Zebre grabbed two tries through Jacopo Trulla and Matt Kvesic to bring the scoreline back to 30-34 and set up the tense finale.
Cardiff were down to 14 men for that ending, Shane Lewis-Hughes having been yellow carded for a tip tackle.
But Cardiff managed to resist the fierce Italian attempts to win the game and clung on for a bonus point victory which does their top eight hopes the power of good.
The first half proved a see-saw encounter with the Italians looking good with ball in hand and Cardiff strong in the set piece.
Two James Botham tries, Rhys Priestland converting, helped give Cardiff a 17-15 half-time lead, after they fell behind to a Zebre try after just three minutes.
A Geronimo Prisciantelli penalty shortly after the restart gave Zebre the lead, but Mason Grady then crossed in the 47th minute and Belcher was able to pop over himself five minutes after to seemingly make the game secure for Cardiff.
Priestland and Jarrod Evans were on target with the boot to seemingly take the game away from Zebre, with the score 34-18 in Cardiff's favour with just 13 minutes to go.
However, Zebre had other ideas and fought back with those two further tries of their own, albeit in the end Cardiff prevailed.
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