Captain Steff Hughes admitted Dragons needed to take responsibility both individually and as a team after defeat to Glasgow Warriors in the BKT United Rugby Championship.
The Men of Gwent suffered in Scotland as individual errors and a poor start undermined any efforts in a heavy 40-7 loss at Scotstoun Stadium.
Hughes admitted the performance of several young players had been a rare highlight on a night of frustration and mistakes.
But he was adamant that Dragons would have to ask tough questions of themselves and be honest if they wanted to start moving forward.
“It’s not good enough,” admitted Hughes. “We lost far too many collisions defensively and it put us on the back foot.
“We ended up defending essentially for 70 minutes, scrambling in defence with the number of one-on-one tackles we missed. It’s difficult to get a game going.
“When we attacked in their 22, we worked hard and got a couple of results. However, we could have been more accurate.
“It’s good to see young players come on, the likes of Che (Hope), Sam (Scarfe), Joe (Westwood) and Brodie (Coghlan) making an impact. They bought energy, that is all you can ask.
“But individually and as a team we need to improve. The basics of the game are the key aspects.
“Injuries are a part of the game and we’ve picked a lot up unfortunately, but that is no excuse.
“We need to look individually at our own games and be honest,” he added.
“Ask ourselves are we doing enough in the week? Are we doing enough day-to-day, to be better, to be as good as we can be?
“As a team we need to be smarter. We had a lot of boys out of position tonight, so we need to be able to adapt our game to suit that.”
Next up for Dragons is a trip to Belfast to face Ulster and Hughes knows the team must take the learnings from Glasgow – especially in defence – if they are to avoid another difficult away day.
He said: “We have another 4G pitch to content with so defensively we need to make sure we win collisions.
“Whether we drop our tackle height and make sure we complete tackles, work on double tackles so we can slow their ball down and bring line speed defensively.
“Against Glasgow we ended up being so passive for so long in the game because our first up collisions weren’t good enough.
“We have got to be accurate when we have opportunities, both off launch and in their 22.”
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As a team we need to be smarter. We had a lot of boys out of position tonight, so we need to be able to adapt our game to suit that...
