We might be forced to wield axe, warns Ryan

DRAGONS director of rugby Dean Ryan has threatened to axe players as his side’s wait for a home victory this season goes on.

It’s been a year since the Dragons last won at Rodney Parade, when they beat the Scarlets in a Rainbow Cup clash.

There was a chance for the Dragons to back up last week’s win in Llanelli on Saturday as they battled back from 17-0 down to lead 19-17 around the hour mark.

But a late collapse meant their search for a third win of a tough campaign went awry, leaving Ryan furious.

The Dragons boss bemoaned the number of errors, adding that some players could be dropped.

“Our error rate and our quality of play is not good enough,” said Ryan.

“That is something that we have got to address.

“We have got to get to a stage where we don’t pick them, and that’s quite difficult for us because it’s quite clear at the moment that when we lose people our levels of depth are not there.

“The only thing that is going to change that is that we won’t pick them, because we are quite aligned in what we talk about but we are not aligned in what happens out there.

“There are two or three mistakes in that second half that put them straight back on the five-metre line, which is not acceptable.

“They were there for the taking when we got to that point at 19-17, get back into their half and hold on to the ball and something would have come for us. But for some reason we thought about other things and that is something that we have to be really hard on next week.”

The Dragons’ worst season is currently the 2017-18 campaign, when Bernard Jackman’s side managed just two wins and two draws.

Right now, Ryan’s Dragons have two wins and a draw to their name. With trips to Zebre and Ospreys and home matches against Cardiff and the Lions to finish the season, chances are limited to avoid an all-time low campaign without a home victory.

“We are too often sitting in changing rooms talking about what we could have done, we are not taking ownership of things,” added Ryan.

“We got ourselves back to a point where I thought the game was coming to us and then we just once again haemorrhaged errors.”