Following defeats to Benetton at Rodney Parade and Edinburgh at Eugene Cross Park the Dragons suffered a third successive loss conceding six tries to a Kings side who had lost all 16 previous fixtures since joining the competition.
"The Kings entirely deserved the win, the scoreboard doesn’t lie," conceded Jackman after the game.
"We had seen the danger they presented in certain games, .against the Ospreys they could have won, but were under pressure at scrum time. In the games they’ve lost heavily they’ve struggled in the scrum and in maul defence, but we didn’t get any advantage in either of those areas.
"The Kings scrum was better than ours and we didn’t get any change from our line out maul, we kicked to the corner on four occasions and we didn’t turn those into points, so there’s two areas we thought we could target and it didn’t happen
"The areas we knew they were strong, in terms of speed off turnover and ability to go from deep, so they could go from their 22 to our 22 and they were counter rucking and we didn’t deal with that very well so we are very disappointed with our performance but we have to give credit to the Kings who didn’t let us play.
"We’re on a big losing run in this competition, with just a couple of draws, but when you are not winning regularly you have a lot of doubt and lack self-belief."
Jackman now feels the Kings could push on towards the end of the season after securing their first victory in the competition.
"They’ll get massive belief from that game. The Kings now don’t have to go back to Europe they only have home games left to play, plus the Cheetahs in South Africa, and when you win there’s a feelgood factor and it gives everyone a lift.
"They’ve had a tough time with no pre-season and it’s not easy to go to Europe and play the weather conditions there but they haven’t lost faith and played good rugby."As well as injury absentees, the Dragons were missing Cory Hill and Elliot Dee to the Wales 6 Nations squad, whilst Hallam Amos was unable to play and shortly before kick off the travelling Welsh region lost both Sarel Pretorius and Ollie Griffiths leading to late changes prior to the start of the game. These key personnel were sorely missed.
"We lacked leadership along the spine of our team and with key guys missing it doesn’t take away from the fact that we were completely outplayed
"We had a young team with a couple of 18 year olds both at scrum half and wing, so for them it’s their first ever trip out of the UK. To come and play in South Africa, in a stadium like this, it’s a big learning curve and they will benefit from that.
"We want to build our team around good young local boys so because there’s no relegation and we’ve recruited heavily for next year, we’ve got to give the youngsters exposure now so they are a lot more readier for next year."
Bernard explained the late withdrawal of Sarel Pretorius who was expected to figure in the game, alongside fellow South African born players Zane Kirchner, Rynard Landman and Jarryd Sage.
"Sarel picked up a virus yesterday and is on antibiotics but they are only starting to work now, so he was on the bench as we had no other scrum half with us but with 10 minutes to go he still wasn’t up to play.
"In fairness he shouldn’t have been on the bench, but we didn’t want to start the game without a scrum half. Sarel is a great player for us vastly experienced and dangerous around the ruck, but it gave Dan Babos 80 minutes in a tough environment."
The Dragons have claimed only two Pro14 victories so far this campaign and with four games to go, including two matches in Italy as well as Toyota Cheetahs at home and the Scarlets at Judgement Day VI at the Principality Stadium the challenge is on to improve on the haul of 4 victories in each of the last two campaigns.
"We have been pretty poor for the last couple of years and that has knocked the confidence and meant we have had to rebuild.
"We need to understand where we are at and we need to go from worst to first. We have got to have a root and branch rebuild, and that's why it's better to know where you are at.
"We are prioritising youngsters at the moment because they are going to play an important role in the future while we have recruited people.
"When I recruited people they didn't think that we were good. They knew that we were poor. That's why I had to convince them to come.
"The worst thing that could happen was to have a couple of decent wins that stops us from making the hard decisions that need to be made if we want to be successful.
"I've seen it happen with Pat Lam and Connacht, Gregor Townsend and Glasgow. Sometimes you have to realise how broken something is before you can fix it properly."
