DRAGONS V SCARLETS (Friday KO 7.05)

HEAD coach Darren Edwards has admitted the heat is on Newport Gwent Dragons ahead of Friday’s derby clash with the Scarlets at Rodney Parade.

The Dragons head into the RaboDirect Pro12 clash with their hopes of Heineken Cup qualification hanging by a thread.

They trail their rivals from Llanelli, who are the third ranked Welsh region, by 14 points approaching the halfway stage of the season.

Not only that but the 11th-placed Dragons are being chased hard by bottom club Aironi, who closed to within two points thanks to their derby win against Treviso last week.

The Dragons slumped to a 28-9 loss to Cardiff Blues last week and at times were dragged along by another huge performance from talisman number eight Toby Faletau.

A drastic improvement will be needed if they are to secure much-needed derby wins against the Scarlets and Ospreys at the Parade over the coming nine days.

“There is huge pressure on us but we don’t shy away from it,” said Edwards.

“We need to put pressure on ourselves because we are in a performance and results business and at the moment we are not producing.

“It is tough at the moment but I have no doubt that the corner will be turned. We will work through this and the players are a dedicated bunch.

“Everybody here is massively frustrated because we are doing so many good things only to let ourselves down with poor discipline or small errors.

“And at the moment we are compounding those mistakes by following up with other errors.

“If we were a million miles away then it would be anger rather than frustration, but I genuinely feel it is the small margins at the moment.”

The Dragons are propping up the Pro12 table when it comes to tries scored after crossing the whitewash just 10 times in 10 games.

In fact, only Biarritz have scored fewer tries in Europe’s three frontline leagues.

However, it is the other end that is causing concern for Edwards following last week’s 28-9 defeat at Cardiff Blues.

“After looking very solid in defence recently we shipped three very avoidable tries against the Blues and didn’t hit the standards we expect,” he said.

“But I actually think that our attack is starting to take shape again and look more like it did at the end of last season.

“We retained the ball well and looked threatening but the problem at the moment is that we are letting teams off the hook and failing to take our chances.

“But one area that was pleasing against the Blues was our scrum. We have been under pressure there recently but I thought they did really well in Cardiff and it was a huge improvement from the games with Exeter.”