Angry Ryan lashes out as Dragons are routed

EDINBURGH ....................... 44 DRAGONS ............................. 6

DRAGONS boss Dean Ryan hit out at his team after they crashed to an opening-day defeat to Edinburgh.

The Scottish side ran in seven tries in 35 minutes to kick-off their own campaign in style, subjecting Dai Flanagan to a painful debut as Dragons head coach.

The Dragons started the better team and were six points up inside 12 minutes thanks to two penalties from JJ Hanrahan, one of five summer signings in their starting line-up.

But it fell apart after that, prompting Dragons director of rugby Dean Ryan to say: “It wasn’t good enough.

“From where we were in pre-season, we looked nervous in the first 20 minutes when we had some opportunities.

“The second half wasn’t good enough. Too many basic mistakes.

“If we’re going to get better, we need to have some hard conversations.

“We’ve got supposed talent in this squad, but I don’t see it at the moment. I don’t see the work rate that was needed or the desire to be in the right position.

“We need to hold some hard conversations about how that can happen in the first game of the season.

“It’ll be interesting to see where players take it. I think there’s a lot of people talking now and interesting what they do about it.

“There’s a point with this region where senior players need to come together and take it in a strong direction.

“I don’t think this is about tactically what we do in the middle third or anything else. This is about some key fundamentals that we’re not getting right and we need to discuss those internally.

“We’ve got to play together, we’ve got to hold conversations together and we’ve got to go out and get better.

“Let’s see how we do.”

The home side’s first try came after sustained pressure, with scrum-half Ben Vellacott forcing his way over from close range.

Lock Glen Young then powered over after a strong break down the blindside from Damian Hoyland.

The hosts wrapped up the bonus point 10 minutes after half-time as Darcy Graham scored an impressive double.

Hoyland, Blair Kinghorn and Chris Dean also crossed. Mark Bennett kicked nine points.