KINGSLEY Jones says he has no intention of walking away from Newport Gwent Dragons after his side’s eight-try hiding by new Guinness PRO12 leaders Leinster.

The full-time whistle at Rodney Parade on Friday night was greeted with a chorus of boos from Dragons fans who had seen their team thrashed 54-22.

The Welsh region, whose worst home league result was a 60-3 hiding against Glasgow in February 2013, have now lost six of their last seven PRO12 outings.

However, head coach Jones insists he plans to stay in the hot-seat and do what he can to turn things around, and when asked whether he intended to carry on as Dragons chief, he replied: “Of course. I’m from Nantyglo, you don’t get nothing without fighting for it.

He went on to add: “I walked into this with my eyes wide open, I’ve grown up here.

“I know it’s going to be a tough job but I’m not afraid of a fight, that’s what this job is.

“There’s a lot of emotion from everybody because I don’t think I’ve been involved in too many games like that.

“But it’s a test for everyone, a true test of everyone’s colours, and we’ll see how we respond to it.

“I’ve got to take responsibility for it as head coach, and the first thing we’ll be looking at is what we did in the week and how we prepared.”

On the game, Jones continued: “I didn’t see that coming. The biggest disappointment was the mental side of things.

“From a positive performance in Connacht with full commitment we’ve made a couple of soft mistakes that a good side like Leinster will punish you for.

“It’s a bad night for Gwent, the coaches and the players.

“We’ve got five games left and I think I might be a little bit mad because I really believed we had a chance of winning at least half of those.

“I just can’t figure out how you can become second best in most facets of the game in six days – it’s obviously a mental one.”

Trailing 14-3 at the break on Friday, the hosts capitulated in the second half as a largely second string Irish province ran in tries with alarming regularity.

Adam Hughes, Matthew Screech and Sarel Pretorius scored for the Dragons but they were all in vain.

Responding to the booing, Jones even said he “will join in with them”, while he admitted that “you find out a lot about each other in situations like this”.

Jones also confirmed that full-back Carl Meyer suffered another blow to the head during the match and wing Ashton Hewitt didn’t make the squad because he is still not right after his concussion.