Head Coach Dai Flanagan has praised the way his ‘grounded’ have reacted to the derby day win over Ospreys – insisting the focus simply remains on getting better with every week.
The Men of Gwent opened the season with a thrilling comeback victory over Ospreys in a pulsating BKT United Rugby Championship Welsh derby at Rodney Parade.
But while admitting there has been a ‘spring in the step this week’, Flanagan has been keen to remove the emotion and be process driven to keep Dragons on an upward curve.
And he knows his squad will need that mentality as they travel to Ireland and the Aviva Stadium to face Leinster on Friday night (kick-off 7.35pm).
“The squad have been very grounded. There were good parts and some work-ons from the game,” he insisted.
“We had a very honest review, as we always do, win, lose or draw. We move on to Leinster trying to be better.
“Obviously there is a spring in our step. It's a win at home, our first game of season, which hasn't been done for 11 years, but we’ve got a lot of work to do.
“You have to take emotion out of what we do, because there's so many highs and lows in a game of rugby.
“You need to be process driven when you think about outcomes and that's what's going to make us better, play by play, phase by phase.
“We saw certain elements we really liked – but there's certain elements we can get better at again.
“We know what's coming this week at the Aviva,” he added.
“They’ve got a development tour with Ireland, so I'd expect a lot of their senior internationals back in their 15.
“The one thing we'll look after is ourselves. We'll go to process, we'll go to style of play, and we will continue to try and be better.”
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Obviously there is a spring in our step. It's a win at home, our first game of season, which hasn't been done for 11 years, but we’ve got a lot of work to do...
