Dragons shot down by double yellow

LEINSTER extended their winning run over the Dragons to nine as Dean Ryan’s side fell to their seventh successive defeat.

On their last visit to Wales, Leinster racked up over 50 points in hammering Scarlets, so Dragons, with only two members of their first choice pack, must have feared the worst.

However, a brave performance from the Men of Gwent gave the reigning champions an almighty scare.

Dragons deservedly led 15-14 at the interval but two yellow cards for forwards Lloyd Fairbrother and Dan Baker ruined their chances as Leinster scored 21 points in their absence.

Leinster director of rugby Leo Cullen said: “It was a positive result on a difficult pitch but we were off in terms of accuracy.

“Playing into the wind in the first half, we were trying too hard to play in a scrappy game but Dragons were good.”

It certainly was one of Dragons’ best halves of rugby in recent weeks as their scrum were on top with veteran Brok Harris to the fore and young flanker Ben Fry losing nothing in comparison with some hardened campaigners in the opposition back row.

Exemplary goal-kicking from Sam Davies rewarded his side’s efforts but Leinster remained in contention at the interval having scored close range tries from Peter Dooley and Scott Penny.

Six minutes after the restart, Fairbrother, playing his 100th PRO14 game for the region, was sinbinned for a no-arms tackle and Leinster capitalised when Josh Murphy forced his way over.

Still down to 14, Dragons suffered a hammer blow when the referee awarded a penalty try for collapsing an unstoppable lineout drive with the culprit Baker yellow-carded.

A try from replacement hooker Dan Sheehan took the Irish out of sight before Dragons rallied with Luke Baldwin and Josh Lewis scoring tries to earn them a deserved losing bonus point.

They had an outside chance to win it at the death but Sam Davies chose to kick the ball out rather than risk an 80m move to win the game.

Dragons director of rugby Ryan said: “Sam made the right decision as you saw how they played through the forwards so a length of the field try wasn’t on.

“It was a game of mixed emotions as we still haven’t got the belief to cope with key moments and yellow cards tend to be damaging for us.

“I’m frustrated that we didn’t kick on from halftime as we had scrum dominance and felt we had control of the game.”