Dean Ryan: Dragons need to play fast and loose against power

The Rodney Parade side suffered a 41-28 defeat to Lyon in the European Challenge Cup on Friday.

The have won just one of nine games in all competitions and have failed to hit the heights of the Guinness PRO14 run-in last season, when Ryan praised their power game.

The Dragons faced Lyon without Wales forwards Elliot Dee, Will Rowlands, Ross Moriarty and Ollie Griffiths, while former Lions powerhouse Jamie Roberts has not been as influential as he was in his first campaign in Newport.

They were put under pressure at the set piece by the French side and trailed 29-13 early in the second half before rallying and threatening a comeback thanks to tries by props Mesake Doge and Aki Seiuli then an Aaron Wainwright breakaway.

The Dragons, who had two spells against 14 men, ultimately endured a pointless evening but director of rugby Ryan was encouraged by what he saw, with his side making 176 passes to Lyon’s 68.

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“We are struggling to hold the foundations of the game so we have to play fast. In the second half we played really fast against a good Lyon side and they struggled,” said Ryan.

“We are going to make some mistakes when we play that fast but that’s just the way that we have got to play.

“Anybody who thinks we can go and hold field position against a scrum that can push us off our ball at any time isn’t looking at the same game.

“Some of our attack was really threatening against a very good side. You can’t move a frantic game into an organised one and we have to live with that.

“We will make some mistakes and we will get turned over, but if we play organised rugby then we definitely won’t win.

“We’ve made that decision and I am quite happy to defend it; we will make mistakes because of the way that we are trying to play and I will support the players to do that.

“We clearly are not at the same power levels as the sides we are playing so we are trying to find a way to express ourselves and still be competitive.

Dragons boss Dean Ryan “For 20 minutes of that second half, that was us. It’s the blueprint if we feel we are struggling in areas of the game, and that was against the top four of the French league and there was no surprise that they had a big front five.

“We are playing fast and chaotic, but that comes with risk and errors. We are comfortable with that because if we do 80 minutes of organisation then we won’t win.”

The Dragons now head into the festive derbies with a trip to the Ospreys on Boxing Day followed by Cardiff in Newport on New Year’s Day and then the Scarlets in Llanelli.

The Dragons were without Dee, Rowlands, Moriarty and Griffiths through injury along with frontline scrum-halves Rhodri Williams and Gonzalo Bertranou, centre Jack Dixon, wing Ashton Hewitt and full-back Jordan Williams.

“We will look at the body count after losing Ollie Griffiths in the warm-up against Lyon,” said Ryan. “We will look at who we have got available but I think we will be light.

“We have frontline players out and when that happens we have youngsters playing, therefore we will make some mistakes.

“We don’t have some of the power when those frontline players aren’t around so we are evolving a game that we think can be competitive.”