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It was the best Dragons performance in many years
The Dragons thrashed Connacht 48-28 at Rodney Parade to claim their first United Rugby Championship victory in 15 months.
Filo Tiatia’s side were outstanding as they took the Irish province to the cleaners with a display full of power and ruthlessness. This was the Dragons’ best performance for a number of years as they put six tries past Stuart Lancaster’s Connacht.
The Dragons have now won two games on the bounce following last weekend’s Challenge Cup victory over Lyon and Tiatia will hope this is just the start of the Welsh club’s revival.
There were a number of standout performances from the Men of Gwent but none more so than Wales wing Rio Dyer who was named the official player of the match.
Oli Burrows, Che Hope (twice), Jared Rosser and Dyer crossed for the Dragons who were also awarded a penalty try while Angus O’Brien kicked 16 points.
Sam Gilbert, Cian Prendergast (twice) and Sean Jansen claimed Connacht’s try while Gilbert added a further eight points from the kicking tee.
It was actually Connacht who drew first blood when centre Sean O’Brien burst clear into the Dragons 22.
Harrison Keddie got penalised and from the resulting lineout Gilbert hit a strong angle to score.
But it was all one way traffic thereafter and after the Dragons forwards had worked their way into the Connacht 22 Burrows powered over from short-range with O’Brien adding the extras.
After 25 minutes the Dragons took the lead courtesy of an opportunistic try from Hope who raced in unopposed from 40 metres out.
The Dragons continued in the same vein and after Dyer very nearly crossed out wide the ball was quickly recycled and moved right for Rosser to touch down at the far right-hand corner.
With half-time fast approaching the Dragons landed the killer blow when they were awarded a penalty try after Connacht illegally sacked their driving lineout.
To make matters worse for Connacht backrower Paul Boyle got sent to the sin bin as the Dragons held a commanding 28-7 lead at the interval.
The Dragons started the second-half in the same manner they had finished the first with O’Brien extending their lead to 34-7 with two successful penalty kicks at goal.
Tiatia’s side claimed their fifth try when former Wales U20s captain Ryan Woodman hit a superb angle before offloading to Dyer who showed tremendous pace to round the Connacht defence to score.
Shortly afterwards Thomas Young had a try disallowed for a forwards pass but they didn’t have to wait long to score again.
Dyer’s blistering pace allowed the Wales wing to race clear from one 22 to the other before drawing in the final defender to put Hope over for his second try.
Connacht claimed a couple of late consolation tries as Cian Prendergast powered over from short-range and he claimed another one shortly afterwards.
The Irish province did take something out of a disappointing evening when Jansen got over the line to claim a bonus point try for the visitors.
But this was the Dragons’ evening as they moved above both the Ospreys and Scarlets into 14th place on the URC table.
