A promising first half display ultimately ended in defeat for Dragons as they lost 30-34 at home to Ulster on Saturday night.
In Dragons’ final game at Rodney Parade this season, tries from captain Aneurin Owen, Huw Anderson and Rhodri Williams gave the home side a 24-14 half time lead only for Ulster to win the game late on.
“We lost the game, but it was a game we shouldn’t have lost,” said Dragons head coach Filo Tiatia post-match.
“There’s a lot of improvements on parts of our game we're trying to work on, you can see it in the first half, we applied really good pressure, won the ball back from kick-off but then we let them back in.
“When we nail opportunities and get opportunities to build pressure, that's been a build on for the last two or three weeks.
“We managed to shut them down, get some turnovers to stay in the game whereas games before have got away from us.
“It was a winnable game and I feel for the players.”
After positive opening halves against Zebre and now Ulster, Dragons will be looking to make a full 80-minute performance in the games to come.
“In the end the growth needed is really around fatigue,” said Tiatia.
“There’re still parts of our game where we let teams back in moments, we've just got to keep working really hard individually, but also collectively.
“How we fight through is really down to mentality, to stay in the flight.
“There’s improvement, there is growth, but it's definitely an area we can keep working on.”
Next up, Dragons travel to face Edinburgh on Friday with the Scottish side having suffered their own tight loss in Italy against Benetton.
“We've got a tough assignment on Friday against Edinburgh away,” said Tiatia.
“We’ll have a look at the mop up, after tonight and see who’s available.
“We've still got a lot of injuries, but it gives other people opportunities to keep growing parts of their game.
“I’m really proud of Harri Keddie’s effort tonight, he’s been out of the game for a long time, played his 100th URC game and he got some good minutes under his belt.
“If we keep our players fit and then from an injury list that we have then we can beat anyone.”
We lost the game, but it was a game we shouldn’t have lost...
