THE OVER-PLAYED motivational speech from Any Given Sunday, the film about American Football, tells us that sport is a game of inches.

Al Pacino bellows that the margin for error is small so fight for the inches because they make the difference between winning and losing.

That was hammered home at Rodney Parade last weekend.

On Friday evening Newport Gwent Dragons were agonisingly close to forcing their way over at the death to earn a bonus point victory against Newcastle.

There was no lack of endeavour but they failed and the feel-good factor earned by a stunning success against Stade Francais vanished.

Around 19 hours later Newport County were trailing 1-0 to Accrington when Marcus Carver hit the back of the net for the visitors only to be denied by the linesman's flag.

The Football League Show revealed that Andrew Hughes was infact playing him onside and viewers were then treated to a Joe Piggott humdinger that maintained the Exiles' super run that sees them sitting in the final playoff spot.

The smallest of margins meant that there were contrasting moods in the respective camps at training on Monday morning and I doubt it was down to County grafting any harder than the Dragons.

It has been an incredibly frustrating campaign for Lyn Jones' men, who could easily have been toasting an away win at Connacht on opening day and would have burgled the points against the Ospreys in round two had Angus O'Brien's drop goal been a couple of yards to the right.

But the league disappointment was nothing compared to last weekend's narrow failure against the Falcons.

Had they sneaked over in the 80th minute then it would have been all smiles despite a lengthy injury list but instead the Dragons are left to rue blowing a glorious opportunity to put themselves within touching distance of a European quarter-final.

However, all is not lost and the crumb of comfort is that the Dragons are still likely to have their Euro fate in their own hands come January, something that we have not been able to say for a number of years.

By then they should be bolstered by the spark of Tyler Morgan, the tackle-breaking ability of Jack Dixon, the decision-making of Pat Leach and the oomph of a second lock to go alongside Rynard Landman.

The hope is that the cavalry will help turn narrow defeats into hard-fought wins.