Boss Dean Ryan challenged his Dragons to learn the lessons of the defeat to champions Leinster and keep striving to get better.
Dragons suffered a 50-15 defeat at the RDS Arena as undefeated Leinster produced a clinical second half of attacking rugby.
Ryan – who saw Jordan Williams and Owen Jenkins cross for tries – admitted Leinster had underlined their pedigree and depth of squad with the eight-try win.
However, he urged his Dragons to dust themselves off and keep learning in the Guinness PRO14.
“They showed their pedigree and that spell after half-time was too much for us,” said Ryan.
“It doesn’t matter whether their front-line guys are away, or their second team are playing, they all understand the script and are incredibly accurate.
“Our discipline hurt us a little bit and put us back on the line and suddenly the game had gone away, after we had been very competitive for 40 minutes.
“We’ve got to get better at conditions like today against the pressure of a side like today. Pressure can be speed of the opponent, the physicality of the opponent.
“Some of the things we were trying to do in front of that pressure today was always going to lead to inaccuracies.
"We’ve got to keep challenging ourselves to get better, we’ve got to challenge ourselves to get better in an environment that is difficult.
“We are having to play teams like Leinster and keep learning lessons from those experiences.”
Dragons had trailed 19-8 at the break but a powerful surge from in the third quarter of the fixture saw them pull clear.
“Scoreboards are a pressure on the game, clocks are a pressure on the game,” said. Ryan.
“If you go too early what is probably a 25-10 game can flush out very quickly.
“There are four or five tries there today where we have tried to play a little bit too much into a face of something that we had not got control of.
“If you haven’t got control of it, you’re only going to increase your error rate.
“Watching us box kick at 70 minutes, when we are that far down, is not really a way of learning either.
“It is a balancing act and one that last week we were on top of, this week we weren’t. That is something for us to take forward.”
Next up is a trip to Edinburgh in the Guinness PRO14 next Friday evening and Ryan insisted it was important Dragons kept working on the same areas of the game where they know they need to improve.
“We’re not going to look for different answers after tonight,” he said.
“We have got four or five things to work on every week. “I thought there were elements of it there today, but if you go chasing another ten different things we are just going to keep going around in circles.
“We will keep working hard at some of those basics, we will keep trying to put it under pressure against a side as accurate as Leinster.
“We’ve got to keep learning lessons of how to get better.”
Dragons are next in action on home soil on Saturday, November 16 when they face Castres in the European Challenge Cup at Rodney Parade. Click HERE to buy online and enjoy Early Bird discounted prices!
We’ve got to get better at conditions like today against the pressure of a side like today...
