Boss Dean Ryan admitted his Dragons needed to ‘roll up our sleeves’ and ‘get better’ after succumbing to a 38-14 defeat to a powerful Connacht side in the Guinness PRO14 at Rodney Parade.
Dragons started brightly in the first home league game of the season and were rewarded with a try from cenre Tyler Morgan.
But as heavy rain came down, Connacht turned the contest into one dominated by the set piece and work in the tight to move clear and wrap up a try bonus point.
Back row Taine Basham scored with the final play for Dragons, but the manner of defeat was clear for Ryan.
“We can’t hide from it,” he said. “That is a game where certain areas of it we were never contesting or not contesting to the level.
“I thought we started brightly, but we didn’t adapt to the rain coming in.
“Full credit to Connacht and their pressure game, physicality and ball carrying. Areas like scrum and drive we were very much second best and we have got to respect those areas.
“We’ve definitely challenged ourselves to play the game faster and in a different way, but the best part of rugby is the basic fundamentals of the challenge around physicality. You can’t hide from that.”
Dragons are next in action against Glasgow Warriors on home soil on Saturday, October 26 (kick-off 3pm) and Ryan admitted his squad needed to continue to address some challenges.
“Sometimes we have looked for magic and something different, but this is staring us in the eyes,” he said.
“Sometimes we can be smarter and stay away from things, but not on a night like Friday and not on a day like at Thomond Park. You can’t hide and we have to address that challenge in the group.
“There is a danger that sometimes you can talk about minimising the impact of certain things by playing differently,” added Ryan.
“You’ve got to be careful that that is not running away from it. We can’t run away from it. We have certain issues in the physical contest and come up against sides that put that very directly at us.
“We have never been under any illusions about the challenge, Friday was just an example of how we look to start to get better. We need to roll up our sleeves and start engaging with those aspects of the game.”
We have never been under any illusions about the challenge, Friday was just an example of how we look to start to get better...
