DIRECTOR of rugby Lyn Jones felt a mixture of encouragement and frustration after Newport Gwent Dragons’ 29-15 defeat at Guinness Pro12 champions Glasgow.

The Dragons suffered a third successive away loss of the campaign at Scotstoun Stadium and saw a bonus point snatched away at the death when Italy flanker Simone Favaro scored the hosts’ fourth try.

The visitors did cross the whitewash twice themselves in a much better attacking display, an effort by lock Rynard Landman and a cracker by wing Ashton Hewitt, but were once again left to lament some costly unforced errors at key moments.

A pair of kicks out on the full by scrum-half Sarel Pretorius and wing Aled Brew led to momentum shifts in the second half while a pair of penalties when chasing a draw in the final stages ended with Favaro crashing over.

“We are disappointed to lose but our performance was a lot better and could have gone either way, unfortunately there were just too many errors behind the scrum that cost us a great deal,” said Jones.

“But from where we were in Dublin (thrashed 37-13 a fortnight ago) our effort, work rate and desire to do well was excellent. I couldn’t fault the fellas on that.

“A few errors stopped us from getting field position to score points but we will win games with that type of effort in the future.

“We fought hard and scored a fantastic try – probably the best try I’ve seen from the Dragons in (my) three years and exactly what we are trying to build towards – to get back within a bonus point and had pressure in their 22 but gave a penalty away. Next thing you know we are down on our own line and the scoreboard isn’t very complimentary to us.

“They were correct in how they played. We had a few errors. That was the difference.”

The Dragons have mustered just five points from four games and desperately need to take the spoils against Treviso at Rodney Parade on Friday to avoid being cut adrift by the Scarlets, Edinburgh and Connacht, teams they wanted to mix it with but who sit on 16 points.

“It’s been a stop-start season, we just need to get games under our belt to build momentum and confidence,” said Jones.

“We are not blessed with £500,000 elite players from the World Cup, we need to create a good team and everybody has a role and responsibility in helping us become that.

“We look forward to Treviso and have already spoken about next week’s challenge, what was good from Glasgow and how we can move things on and build.”