The Dragons came into the game off the back of a first Welsh derby win for four years after beating the Ospreys at Rodney Parade six days earlier to give hopes of a first win in Llanelli since September 2007 but it was not to be for the Men of Gwent despite their best efforts.
"I thought it was a valiant effort from the boys, they really stuck in there and worked really hard for each other, so I’m proud of that effort tonight," said Ceri Jones to Premier Sports.
Like Scarlets, the Dragons were hampered by injury particularly in the front row and this prevented the visitors from developing a platform for attack and gave possession and territory to the home team.
"Losing Ryan Bevington in the week and Aaron Jarvis early on, both are quality players so with Lloyd (Fairbrother), Brok (Harris) and Leon Brown out as well it’s difficult. The Scarlets exploited us at the scrum today so credit to them.
In the first half especially our set-piece didn’t function as I wanted it too and that puts you under huge pressure.
When we did keep the ball we looked dangerous and our defensive effort was huge," added Jones.
Ceri Jones knows his Dragons team will need to pick themselves up for a quick turnaround as they return to European Challenge Cup action against Timisoara Saracens on Friday at Rodney Parade (kick off 7.30pm).
"We just need to go back and look at the good things we did today, take the positives from it and work on the set piece and keeping the ball better."
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We just need to go back and look at the good things we did today, take the positives from it and work on the set-piece and keeping the ball better.
