NEWPORT Gwent Dragons chief Kingsley Jones was a happy man after his side’s pre-season victory over Cardiff Blues.

And, while warm-up games don’t offer any points or trophies, Jones believes “it’s important we understand the habit of winning”.

Losing, in most cases by very narrow margins, became a habit for the Men of Gwent last term, so the Rodney Parade head coach is eager to turn that on its head when the new campaign gets under way.

A positive result, and more importantly an encouraging performance, against the Blues – the Dragons won 38-28 – gave Jones a lot to be pleased about.

“With these games you’re looking to see if the things you’ve worked on come through,” he said. “I thought our breakdown work showed through and we had some quick rucks.

“We measure ruck success at two seconds to recycle and we were at 77% in the first 30 minutes.

“And when you have got a player like Sarel Pretorius at scrum-half you’ve got to utilise that, so I thought that caused the Blues a lot of problems.

“Some of our set-piece work was excellent too, our platform looked strong and our drives were good.

“We scored a couple of tries from drives, we defended their drives reasonably well and we stole a few balls in the air. Our shape in attack was good and that’s something we’ve worked hard on.”

He added: “At 31-0 we were worried that they were getting a bit too confident.

“The Blues changed the way they played, hit us harder around the rucks and caused us problems.

“We did have issues then, often sending too many to breakdowns and the defence got a bit narrow at times.

“But we got the win and it’s important we understand the habit of winning. The key thing for this group is belief.”

For the record, Rynard Landman, Elliot Dee, Adam Hughes, Nic Cudd and Rhys Thomas scored the Dragons’ tries in a fixture that was also a benefit game for former centre Ashley Smith and current captain Lewis Evans. Nick Macleod and Carl Meyer kicked the remaining points.

The Blues, who fought back from 31-0 down to add some respectability to the scoreboard, scored tries through Lewis Jones, Steve Shingler, Josh Navidi and Dan Fish.

“We’ve worked very hard on our core skills and I thought it showed,” said Jones. “The handling, by and large, was very good, so it’s really positive.”

The Dragons continue their preparations for the new season on Saturday when they host Ealing Trailfinders in Ystrad Mynach (3pm).