Boss Dean Ryan was left frustrated with Dragons second half performance following the narrow 23-27 loss to Welsh rivals the Ospreys at Rodney Parade.
The Men of Gwent started strongly in their opening game of the United rugby championship season racing into a 10-0 lead.
Dragons then went into half time 16-10 ahead following a Josh Lewis try and nine points from the boot of fly half Sam Davies.
But 17 unanswered points in the second half was enough to give Ospreys the victory despite a late Rhodri Williams try for the home side.
And Director of Dragons Rugby Ryan admits he was frustrated that his side couldn’t regain momentum after the break.
“I was pretty happy at half time, we had a lot of ball carriers causing a lot of problems” said Ryan.
“But we just lost momentum in that second half, our possession dried up, some of it from our own accuracy and others they shifted it by binging a bit more ball back.
“The yellow card and that loss of momentum was crucial, and we just didn’t really understand how to shift that back.
“It’s frustrating because we felt when we could get on the front foot, we caused problems because we had an edge with the number of ball carriers but in that second half, we just couldn’t get them into that space.”
Dragons welcome Champions Leinster to Rodney Parade next Sunday in round two of the United Rugby Championship.
The Rodney Parade outfit will be looking to bounce back from the loss to the Ospreys on the opening weekend while Leinster will look to make it two from two following a dominant victory in round one.
But Ryan insists the Irish province will be a different proposition for his side but admits Dragons will need to play smarter against the Dublin based outfit.
“In that first half we were very accurate and in possession we looked very dangerous with lots of ball carriers, especially with that back row and Will Rowlands” said Ryan.
“The disappointment is pretty obvious, that 25-minute shift of momentum when we didn’t really understand how to wrench it back.
“We made mistakes at the lineout and made mistakes with penalties that just fed it and we’ve got to get better in those moments.”
He continued “It’s about being smart, we let them in by giving penalties away., we’ve got to get smarter and we never understood how to get momentum back.”
“We’ve got to be better in all areas against Leinster, they will be a different challenge because they are a possession side and they won’t give us the ball back.”
“The Ospreys were quite happy to kill the tempo of the game but Leinster won’t be, they will want to keep it up and that will stress us, so we got to be ready for that.”
