Captain Steff Hughes vowed Dragons would channel the frustration of opening day defeat into the big derby clash with Cardiff Rugby next weekend.
The Men of Gwent were edged out 22-17 on the opening weekend of the BKT United Rugby Championship season as Edinburgh fired back after early tries from Sio Tomkinson and Corey Baldwin.
Dragons do not have long to wait until they are back on home soil with local rivals Cardiff the visitors next Sunday afternoon (kick-off 2.30pm).
And Hughes vowed a frustrated Dragons squad would regroup and come out firing at Rodney Parade.
“Frustration is the message,” admitted Hughes. ”There is a lot of growth in this group and we rebuild and go again next week. We’ll look forward to the derby.
“The game with Edinburgh was important to us, but we will regroup and be ready for next week.
“There are some great lessons there, but also some good that we will grow and use moving forward.
“We know we’ve got to review things hard, the penalty count is something we need to address, but we don’t need to panic.
“We’ve shown enough in that game that we can compete. But we need to be more disciplined.
“We have an opportunity next week. The crowd is brilliant here and we’ll learn lessons and come back firing next weekend.”
Reflecting on the Rodney Parade opener, Hughes admitted the team had failed to build on flying into an early 14-0 lead.
“We started well, but they are a good side, and we gave them a chance to get back into the game,” said Hughes.
“We gave away 20 penalties, and it is tough to win a game when you do that.
“You can’t challenge our effort, but we can be more accurate, especially between 60 and 80 minutes.
“We overplayed a bit in the second half, we couldn’t quite get the momentum back.
“Between 60 and 80 minutes we need to take hold of the game and manage territory and pressure and come out on the right side of the discipline count.
“We scored two great tries early on and our defence was excellent in the first half. We had line speed and forced them to kick a lot. There is growth for this group using that.
“We’ll lick our wounds this week and use this game to fuel us moving forward.”
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There is a lot of growth in this group and we rebuild and go again next week... We’ll look forward to the derby.
