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Reaction: Jackman 'happy for players'

Head Coach Bernard Jackman was pleased for his Dragons team after they completed what was required from them against Bordeaux-Begles at Rodney Parade.

The Dragons came into the game knowing they needed a bonus point win and at least a 9 point margin of victory against the Top 14 outfit after going down to Bordeaux last Saturday.

A five try win with scores from Elliot Dee, Cory Hill, Ashton Hewitt, Lloyd Fairbrother and Pat Howard was enough for the Dragons to secure their first win of 2018 and pip Bordeaux to second spot in the pool. With two of the five pools still to play their final games the Dragons must now wait to see whether it will be enough to progress.

"I'm really happy for the players as they’ve had a tough time with more and more knocks and injuries and not being able to get a win of late," said Jackman. "Last week you could see the positives but we just weren't accurate enough."

"We managed the end of the game with good maturity which has let us down before, but we were ruthless.

"We said if we played with a high tempo the cracks would begin to appear, so even at half time we weren’t overly worried, just a little disappointed we hadn’t scored more. However we felt we had laid the foundations for later as we knew we were fitter than them. We’ve got those fitness issues sorted and the players have got confidence from that.

"At the end we’ve defended for 10 minutes on our own line when even a penalty would have been disastrous and then we’ve gone down there and kicked for the corner and scored."

After a postponement earlier today, Worcester face Brive in France and the scheduled Stade Francais Paris versus Edinburgh game are both due to be played tonight and both will be decisive  in determining the final quarter-final line-up.

"If we don’t go through we blew it against the Russians when we didn’t get the bonus point here," added Bernard. "But we said in the week let’s give ourselves every chance by beating them by nine points with a bonus point and hope we get a little bit of luck.

"If we get through I’d take anybody as it would just be a nice carrot and a change of competition in 5-6 weeks time to keep things fresh, but we’ll  have to see how results go tonight."

The Dragons return to Anglo Welsh Cup action next week against Saracens before hosting Worcester Warriors in the same competition at Rodney Parade on 2nd February. 

CLICK HERE to secure your tickets for the clash against the Warriors at early bird prices.

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