NEWPORT Gwent Dragons suffered an away whitewash in agonising circumstances after conceding a try at the death to suffer a 24-20 defeat after leading 20-3 entering the closing stages in Edinburgh.

The Dragons looked set to end their long wait for a Guinness PRO12 win away from Rodney Parade only to suffer a late attack of the nerves at Myreside.

Tries by wing Pat Howard and full-back Carl Meyer plus 10 points from the boot of fly-half Angus O’Brien put them within touching distance as the clock passed into the 70s.

However, a trio of late tries as visiting legs tired condemned them to a cruel, cruel defeat that means they have lost all away games in 2016/17, while they can no longer finish higher than 10th.

Of all of the defeats on the road, this was the most painful.

They had the ball and the lead with 10 seconds left yet somehow managed to lose. It will frustrate them until they go on their travels again in 2017/18 when the losing streak gets brought up again.

Kingsley Jones must now somehow rally his troops from such a crushing disappointment with victory against Cardiff Blues in Caerphilly needed to avoid being leapfrogged by the winner of the game between Treviso and Zebre.

With both teams in horrendous form and playing for the prize of ninth place, it wasn’t a clash to demand the interest of the rest of the PRO12 but it meant plenty for the two camps after hugely disappointing campaigns.

It was the hosts that struck first through the familiar left boot of the Dragons’ record points scorer Jason Tovey, the fly-half banging over a ninth-minute penalty to toast his birthday.

Kingsley Jones had demanded his side maintain their standards from an encouraging performance in defeat to the Scarlets at Judgement Day but they made too many errors in the first quarter while also getting on the wrong side of Welsh referee Dan Jones.

Three mistakes in a row – a knock-on, scrum penalty – lineout penalty – saw them go from attacking in Edinburgh’s 22 to defending in their own and it took some scrambling to shove flanker Viliame Mata out by the corner flag.

It was a pretty uninspiring affair… but the Dragons wouldn’t have cared about the quality when they went into the lead just past the half hour with a well-constructed counter attack.

Turnover ball as first worked to the right for full-back Meyer to charge into the 22 and it was then worked to the other flanker for former Edinburgh centre Sam Beard to calmly put wing Howard over for his first score since December.

O’Brien, the Dragons fly-half with Scottish roots, converted and then boomed over an excellent penalty on the stroke of half-time for a 10-3 lead.

It had been a poor quality game between two sides low on confidence but Jones’ men returned from their changing room knowing that they were a solid 40 minutes away from a memorable, and rare, away win.

And the Dragons started superbly to stretch their lead to 17-3 with 49 minutes on the clock after a second super effort down the left flank.

First flanker Nic Cudd, O’Brien and scrum-half Charlie Davies went close but then the visitors were over when centre Jack Dixon’s canny offload was followed by a lovely flat O’Brien ball and a second Beard assist for Meyer to cross.

The fly-half improved the score only for the Dragons to nearly shoot themselves in the foot, a charge down leading to a period of scrambling in their 22.

Thankfully Edinburgh have a few demons and were unable to convert pressure into points and it remained 17-3 entering the final quarter.

The next score would be crucial and the Dragons had a lucky escape with 64 minutes gone.

Edinburgh thought they had got back in it through Blair Kinghorn only for the try to be chalked off for a dangerous clear-out at an earlier ruck by Allan Dell, an offence that also saw the prop sin-binned.

That was a huge turning point – the Dragons had been given a warning and home shoulders sagged.

And O’Brien struck a huge blow when he rewarded his pack’s efforts at the set piece by banging over a penalty to make it 20-3… alas, it wasn’t game over.

Scrum-half Charlie Davies was yellow-carded for killing the ball on his line and Kinghorn was put over seconds later with Tovey’s conversion making it 20-10.

The Dragons were creaking and it was 20-17 when Tovey put wing Damien Hoyland over with a neat inside ball before adding the extras.

The visitors had 90 seconds to survive but, in possession, conceded a penalty with the clock approaching 80 minutes.

Edinburgh tapped and worked all the way towards the Dragons line with Nic Cudd sin-binned for killing the ball.

The Scots went for the win rather than a share of the spoils and got their reward when captain Grant Gilchrist crashed over to deny the Dragons.

Edinburgh: G Bryce, D Hoyland, C Dean, J Rasolea (B Kinghorn 60), R Scholes, J Tovey (D Weir 31-40), N Fowles (S Hidalgo-Clyne 50), A Dell (J Hardie 75), G Turner (R Ford 54), S Berghan (F McKenzie ), G Gilchrist (captain), B Toolis, V Mata (M McCallum 67), H Watson, C Du Preez.

Scorers: tries – B Kinghorn, D Hoyland, G Gilchrist; conversions – J Tovey (3); penalty – J Tovey

Yellow card: A Dell

Dragons: C Meyer (GR Jones 67), A Hughes, S Beard, J Dixon, P Howard, A O’Brien, C Davies, T Davies (P Price ), R Thomas (R Buckley 65), B Harris (C Mitchell 65), M Screech (R Landman 65), C Hill (M Screech 73-78), L Evans (captain, H Keddie 69), N Cudd, O Griffiths.

Scorers: tries – P Howard, C Meyer; conversions – A O’Brien (2); penalties – A O’Brien (2) Yellow cards: C Davies, N Cudd

Referee: Dan Jones (Wales)

Attendance: 3,498

Argus star man: Sam Beard