Captain Rhodri Williams admits the players need to be held accountable following the 38-7 loss to Leinster at the RDS Arena on Friday night, writes Gavin Barrett.
A fully-loaded Leinster ran in six tries and despite plenty of commitment from the Men of Gwent they only had a Sam Davies try and conversion to show for their efforts in Dublin.
Williams, 28, insists the players can’t keep repeating the same mistakes following their fourth defeat in a row during the Rainbow Cup.
But despite the negatives and winless run he does believe there are plenty of positives to take out of the recent fixtures with the scrum half praising the young talent coming through at the region.
“I think you have to credit Leinster in that first 20 minutes to score 19 points and when you give someone like that the lead you struggle to come back from it," he said.
“What created that, I guess their speed of ball we couldn’t slow it down and again credit to them they were just on the front foot and if you give a team of that calibre front foot ball then they are going to punish you.
“As a squad we need to be accountable. There were plenty of errors out there and we need to look through them and learn from them.”
The Swansea-born product continued: “We can’t be doing the same mistakes over and over again, that is four defeats and some of the mistakes are the same.
“We can’t be speaking about the same mistakes every Monday, but as I said there are positives and there was a few youngsters out there who really shone.
"Taine Basham was outstanding, Ioan (Davies) came on and did well, Aneurin 9Owen) again and I think spoke Dean spoke about Ben Carter up against international second rows. We are growing but we need to start putting the negatives right.”
Dean Ryan has given opportunities to youth during the inaugural Rainbow Cup and Williams believes the Dragons are heading in the right direction - however, he insists the whole team need to start performing as a collective.
“I feel that we are 100% moving in the right direction, we are developing players like that who shone tonight and are a big part in the future of this region, but it is a collective," he stated.
“You can’t just have a few players shining, we need to start performing as a team and it falls back again to being accountable. We need to be accountable and we need to start turning those negatives into positives next season.”
You can’t just have a few players shining, we need to start performing as a team and it falls back again to being accountable...
