BERNARD Jackman says his Dragons players have done themselves proud by doing all they can to keep their European Challenge Cup dreams alive with a crushing win against Bordeaux-Begles.

Tries by hooker Elliot Dee, lock Cory Hill, right wing Ashton Hewitt, tighthead Lloyd Fairbrother and replacement left wing Pat Howard secured a remarkable 33-17 win in Newport.

It leaves them needed results in France to go their way if they are to sneak into the quarter-finals as one of three best runners-up.

The five-try success came a week after they were edged out 36-28 at the Stade Chaban-Delmas and was all the more remarkable given that they led just 5-3 at half-time.

“Last week in Bordeaux we could see positives and said that if we play with a high tempo for 80 minutes then the cracks would start to appear in the second half,” said Jackman.

“If we don’t go through then we blew it by not getting the bonus point against the Russians here but we can’t cry about that now.

“We said this week ‘let’s give ourselves every chance, let’s beat them with a bonus point and hope that we get a little bit of luck’.

“If we don’t then it’s our own fault for earlier in the season but we did what we had to today and that’s going to be our mantra every week.

“It finishes this block, which has been really hard, on a positive.”

The win, combined with London Irish only winning narrowly against Russian minnows Krasny Yar, leaves them waiting for news from Toulouse, Paris and Toulle.

They need two results to go their way – Sale failing to win with a bonus at Toulouse, Stade Francais failing to beat Edinburgh and Brive winning without a bonus.