Tenacious Dee stars in massive win for Dragons

DRAGONS hooker Elliot Dee produced a stand-out individual display as Bernard Jackman’s men recorded their first win of the Guinness PRO14 season.

Dee was rightly named man of the match as he scored a first-half try, adding to an effort inside two minutes from Wales wing Hallam Amos.

Gavin Henson kicked a conversion and three penalties as the Rodney Parade outfit came out on top against a poor Connacht side who never got going before the break.

Dee said: “It was brilliant. You could see from the way the boys rose up from the bench at the end of the game how much the win meant to everyone. It was absolutely massive.

“We were under pressure in that game, particularly in the second half, but we worked hard for each other out there. It’s a really tight, closeknit group of boys here. There’s no better feeling than going to war with your friends.

“As players you try not to look at the press, but the pressure was there for us to get a result. Hopefully this can be the start of something.”

Dragons went into the break in total control. Amos’ opener was a cracker with Dee, Jack Dixon and Zane Kirchner all involved. Henson missed the conversion, but added the extras to Dee’s close-range effort and the former Wales back also booted three penalties.

Connacht had lost James Cannon to a yellow card for offside when stopping Sarel Pretorius from scoring what would have been the Dragons’ third try.

Jack Carty had kicked a penalty and although Quinn Roux was driven over in the second half, Connacht made too many mistakes to come out on top. They lost Tiernan O’Halloran to injury, but the Dragons also had to reshuffle their back line.

Kirchner and his replacement Jarred Rosser both left the field and although it meant scrum-half Pretorius ended up on the wing, it failed to make a difference to the overall result.

Connacht boss Kieran Keane said: “We had defensive frailties and we leaked some poor tries. The Dragons were tenacious and resilient and it was a funny old game.

“Defence was our issue in the first half and in the second, it was our attack.”