Dragons Make it Three from Three

Newport Gwent Dragons made it three wins from three in pre season warm up games, however, it was far from a convincing performance.

Bedford scored first with fly half Ben Patston landing a penalty in the opening minute after The Dragons were penalised for hands in the ruck. The home side drew level when Aled Thomas slotted a penalty in the 14th minute.

The visitors retook the lead when Patston landed his second penalty, however, The Dragons had the final say in the first half with centre Ashley Smith scoring in injury time and Thomas landed the touchline conversion.

In the second half both sides failed to score giving The Dragons the 10-6 victory.

Speaking after the game captain Andrew Hall said, "We are going into the start of the season with three wins and if we hadn't have won then confidence would have been down. We know there were lots of shortcomings tonight and there is stuff to work on and there will be a swift turnaround in performance ahead of next week, there has to be. In the first half our scrum wasn't stable and while we won good lineout ball our driving play needed to be tighter, however, it has given us a good kick up the bum. Had we smashed them 50-0 then that would not have been as beneficial and it has certainly given us a wake up call."

Head Coach Paul Turner said, "We have a lot of work to do. Bedford's set piece was better and we need to work on ours, our ball delivery at the ruck needs addressing and when we had the ball we didn't control it well. It is a huge week for us now if we want to get a result at Stradey Park. Bedford taught us a lesson and a lot of egos have been damaged but we have got to bounce back. The watching crowd must have been frustrated but our problems lay at the set piece which was not good enough."

Newport Gwent Dragons v Bedford (Rodney Parade, Newport) - 24 August 2007