NEWPORT Gwent Dragons suffered a late collapse in Edinburgh on Friday night. Here are five things from the 24-20 defeat in the Guinness PRO12 clash at Myreside.

1: THE STREAK GOES ON

The PRO12 media awards night is in Dublin on Sunday week and for the second season running the Dragons will come away with the Dennis Bergkamp Poor Travellers honour.

It’s now 23 games (not including the three Judgement Day defeats) since they won away from Rodney Parade in the league, while they didn’t win any away game this season.

The Myreside collapse means that PRO12 streak back to a terrific win against Treviso in March, 2015 will still be raised when the team take to foreign soil in September.

It’s two PRO12 seasonal whitewashes on the spin and they will have few better chances than they did on Friday night.

2: IMPLOSION

This was the worst defeat of the season, worse than 54-22 to Leinster at Rodney Parade, 47-17 in Glasgow or 38-18 against Enisei-STM in Krasnodar.

The performance may not have been as shoddy as it was on those occasions but the total collapse put those heavy losses in the shade.

To lose after leading 20-3 with 72 minutes gone against a Guinness PRO12 title contender would be painful, to lose it against a peer also on a horrendous run of form is criminal.

The middle spell of the game was a good away performance by the Dragons, the sort that would record at least a couple of away wins per year, but the final quarter was horrendous.

There were moments when they were creaking when the management must’ve wished they had the ability to call an NFL style timeout.

3: MENTAL PROBLEMS

Head coach Kingsley Jones said to the media on Tuesday that the clash in Edinburgh would be a battle “of the top two inches” but the Dragons lost their heads.

Perhaps it’s down to being in a foreign situation, but they completely lost their composure when Blair Kinghorn scored Edinburgh’s first try.

That is infuriating; they still had a 10-point lead with seven minutes to go against a side who had been shocking.

The ease with which Edinburgh got over the gain line in the closing minutes can’t be down to a lack of physical toughness, it has to be mental toughness.

4: SQUAD DEPTH

The Dragons need to start hitting the minimum spend of the Rugby Services Agreement and they need a lot more players heading through the door than just Zane Kirchner and Gavin Henson.

They are down to the bare bones when it comes to senior backs – Tyler Morgan will hopefully provide a boost by coming back for the Cardiff Blues game – while they had to turn to fourth-choice tighthead, albeit a former international in Craig Mitchell, when Brok Harris was forced off.

It was a shame that teenage scrum-half Owain Leonard couldn’t come on given the tight nature of the game but, although he is a talent, his presence among the replacements tells a story.

In this age of ‘finishers’, the Dragons budget means that they rarely have a whole 23 to get the job done.

Sadly not one of their replacements on Friday enjoyed an impact they would have liked and it was telling that Jason Tovey danced through a gaping hole left by two subs, Mitchell and Rhys Buckley, at the death to set the scene for the winner.

5: ONE MORE PHASE

All this navel-gazing wouldn’t be happening were it not for one vital moment with 10 seconds remaining.

Had referee Dan Jones not found a breakdown offence after a carry by Harri Keddie then the narrative would have been about an excellent Dragons win despite a late wobble. It would have been about them having something to build on next season.

Instead the Dragons failed to successfully get over the line despite winning the lineout on 79:30. On 82:35 Grant Gilchrist barged over and we have moments to ponder.

They lost their composure and it’s worth noting that at this stage Charlie Davies, a specialist scrum-half used to bossing around forwards, was in the sin bin.

Would he have been so eager to move the ball away from breakdown rather than resting his studs on it? Adam Hughes doesn’t have the experience of directing teammates and getting in the ear of the officials as the clock approaches red, but it’s a team effort in such moments.

I suppose a side that has won just eight games all season isn’t used to killing the clock to secure the spoils.

Even if it was harsh to ping the Dragons, with 80 metres to play with the visitors should have still got the job done and Gilchrist’s try was simply a hard run as first carrier from a quick tap.

The failure will now linger over the summer months.