Boss Dean Ryan admitted Dragons had been hit hard at the fundamentals of the game - set piece and breakdown - as they slipped to a 42-26 defeat to Ospreys at Rodney Parade.
Jonah Holmes grabbed a brace while Dan Baker and Rio Dyer also crossed for Dragons on home soil in the Guinness PRO14 Rainbow Cup.
But a strong performance by Ospreys in the set piece and at the breakdown saw Dragons playing catch-up for much of the game.
“The first half we got hit with the fundamentals of the game,” said Ryan.
“We couldn’t hold field position through scrum and it just caused us too many problems.
“I think the yellow card highlighted our inability to compete at the scrum.
“Respecting areas like the scrum and the breakdown – that was the lesson for us in the first half hour.
“That period meant we were chasing from there on. Even some of our good bits were a bit frantic because we were always behind.
“One of the key learnings is if we want to play a game that has a lot of movement, then we can’t ignore the fundamentals because people come after us,” he added.
“The Ospreys did that for half an hour. Then we got a yellow card, lost momentum in the game, and it was pretty difficult for us from there. We can’t afford to ignore it.
“We are definitely trying to use this tournament to try and play faster, but not everyone is going to turn up and let you.
“We’ve got to work it out and we can’t have a scrum performance like we had today and expect the running game to get us out of jail.
“We saw flashes of the game we have been able to strike, but we didn’t see it often enough.
“When you are running away from a set piece game to try and get it on the park then that is never healthy.”
A number of young players impressed for Dragons with Aneurin Owen named Guinness Player-of-the-Match for his fine display.
But it was little consolation for Director of Dragons Rugby Ryan who admitted his team needed to learn lessons from the performance.
“We keep talking about learning and learning that people aren’t going to let you play the game you want to play is part of it,” he added.
“Aneurin (Owen) and Jonah (Holmes) looked really sharp again and Rio (Dyer) was threatening.
“But people aren’t going to let you play the game you want to play and get after your breakdown and sort of play it much slower so you can’t get into those situations.
“For us as an exercise there is a lot for us to learn from today. “We’ll come back and try and play that game again, but also be a bit more wise for it.”
We’ve got to work it out and we can’t have a scrum performance like we had today and expect the running game to get us out of jail...
