Dragons paid price for first half against Ulster - Dean Ryan

The Rodney Parade region suffered a 10th defeat from 12 games when beaten 12-0 by Ulster in the Newport wind and rain on Sunday.

The conditions were farcical but Ryan was encouraged by what he saw from Maksymiw, who joined forces with Joe Davies in the boilerhouse in the absence of Wales locks Will Rowlands and Ben Carter.

He then became even more important when Davies was forced off towards the end of the first half to be replaced by Huw Taylor, who is a flanker by trade.

“I thought that Joe Maksymiw was outstanding. We took their lineout off them,” said Ryan about his 6ft 7ins lock, who arrived from Connacht two years ago.

“Will Rowlands is a huge physical presence but Joe is putting his point of difference around lineout tactics.

“We talk to him a lot about being simpler at the lineout and Sunday’s conditions forced it on him.

Dragons captain Harri Keddie rises to claim lineout ball against Ulster

“There are times when he has overthought the lineout contest and got himself into trouble but on Sunday there were only two or three calls there, just go and do them well.

“He did a great job and shut Ulster down because if they had ball from starter points then their power was there, but we stopped that by forcing them to tap lineout ball.”

The Dragons failed to cause a major upset against an Ulster side who moved level on points with Leinster at the top of the URC.

The hosts played with a strong wind at their backs in the first half yet failed to make it count and trailed 5-0 at the break after conceding in the 40th minute.

An Ulster driving lineout try soon after the restart secured the spoils for the Irish province, with Ryan stressing the Dragons won’t spent long picking through the bones.

He said: “It’s one of those games that you don’t spend too much time analysing because it was pretty difficult for both sides to play in, but we rue not making more of that wind in the first half.

“We might ask question around field position, have a look at the set piece and then move on pretty quickly because fingers crossed we don’t have to play in conditions like that very often.”

Dragons boss Dean Ryan

“We overplayed a little bit and didn’t win the field position game. For them to get a breakaway try right at the end of the half was a bit of a hammer blow,” he continued.

“We always knew about their power game and their scrum, especially when their bench came on, started to grow into the game.

“On a day like that you couldn’t move [the ball] to get field position, you needed power to get field position.

“When the outcome of putting the ball through the hands wasn’t positive you’ve got to change, and I don’t think that we did.

“What we had planned through the week changed on Sunday morning because of conditions, we wanted to kick much earlier in the phase count and didn’t for some reason. Ultimately we paid the price.”

Things don’t get any easier for the Dragons with a trip to face Munster in Cork on March 5 followed by a double-header in South Africa against the Bulls and Sharks.

“Munster will be power again and we can’t hide from that. Ulster was a good platform for us to get ready for that,” said Ryan. “It was the same by Munster against Edinburgh even without their internationals – power.”