Dragons vs Turks

Dragons: Carl Meyer; Pat Howard, Sam Beard, Adam Warren, Ashton Hewitt; Angus O'Brien, Sarel Pretorius; Sam Hobbs, Rhys Buckley, Leon Brown, Nick Crosswell, Rynard Landman, Harrison Keddie, Ollie Griffiths, Ed Jackson.

Replacements: Thomas Rhys Thomas, Thomas Davies, Brok Harris, Matthew Screech, Nic Cudd, Tavis Knoyle, Arwel Robson, Tyler Morgan.

Scarlets: Tom Williams; Richard Smith, Ioan Nicholas, Gareth Owen (capt), Corey Baldwin; Dan Jones, Aled Davies; Dylan Evans, Dafydd Hughes, Nicky Thomas, Tadhg Beirne, Rynier Bernardo, Jack Condy, Joshua Macleod, Morgan Allen.

Replacements: Taylor Davies, Luke Garret, Simon Gardiner, Ben Thompson, Tom Phillips, Declan Smith, Jack Maynard, Billy McBryde.


Should be a comfortable home win given the relative strength of the two sides, but you know us.

10-16, half time.

36-21 full time. 5 tries for the Dragons

My thoughts:-

We were far too undisciplined in the first half, both in terms of the penalties we gave away and trying miracle offloads when it wasn't on. The result was we gifted the Scarlets territory and possession needlessly.

The red card changed the course of the game which would have been closer otherwise. We played some good stuff in the second half (as you would expect with an extra man) and the guys we brought off the bench allowed us to dominate collisions which, coupled with an extra man, gave us space to play.

Positives

3rd win on bounce at home (allbeit against a weakened Scarlets)
Keddie carried very well and looked up for it - settling in well at this level
Ashton Hewitt looked busy and always beats his man
Angus had some nice touches
Tavis did OK off the bench

Negatives

We didn't get the upper hand until they went down to 14
Angus was back to his erratic self with kicking
Guilty of trying too much in poor conditions - lack of game awareness

Based on this Scarlets team's result against Bath you would assume they're a good bunch and that this is a good result for Dragons. I agree with Connor when he says three wins on the bounce at home is good for momentum, etc. I imagine there is still a lot to improve upon to get that fourth win though.

The Dragons were a bit childish, the script said the Scarlets were meant to score the try at 80+ mins, so we could both walk away with points (5 for Dragons, 2 for us). I hope someone gets a serious butt kicking for them not sticking to the script.

Realistically though, that was not far off the result I expected, considering Condy got sent I can forgive the shoreline being a bit bigger.

Anyone see the Condy incident? There seem to be conflicting reports in the press: An off the ball challenge, a punch, Wales Online thought he has been yellow carded until he didn't come back on. Pivac refused to comment apart from saying he planned to review the incident.
It must have been pretty serious to get a straight red, anyone actually know what happened?

I was intrigued by this to be honest, from South Wales Argus writer Chris Kirwan.

"BTW Jack Condy red card was for an alleged punch on NGD player who came through a ruck then interfered, so to speak."

I was relatively pleased by the result. Though I also think some Dragons fans are overegging it too, particularly on FB.

The concern is that the coaching team over-egg it and see it as some sort of vindication of their development of the team. Without Condy going Conty I wouldn't have been surprised too see us lose that one.

I agree. We were poor first half.