DRAGONS boss Bernard Jackman says he wasn’t feeling the pressure ahead of their vital Guinness PRO14 clash with Zebre – but the precious 16-5 win makes the task of fixing their problems easier.

The Rodney Parade region triumphed in the torrential Newport rain thanks to tries by fly-half Arwel Robson and wing Dafydd Howells.

The hard-fought success against the dangerous Italians means that they have already drawn level with their meagre tally of two league wins that they managed last season.

After losing to Benetton in Newport on opening weekend and spluttering to a home success against Southern Kings, the pressure was on the head coach but Irishman insists he wasn’t concerned by that.

“If you start panicking because of outside criticism or people doubting you then you will stray away from your philosophy and you have no chance of getting there,” said Jackman.

“We weren’t panicking, and wouldn’t have if we had lost today, but it just makes life easier. The boys will have a smile on their face on Monday and we have another win under our belt.

“We know that there is a huge amount of things that we need to fix; we will fix them but it’s nice to do that on the back of winning four points.”

The Dragons produced a mature performance to take the spoils after going into a 16-5 lead early in the second half.

“There were elements of the performance that we were a little bit frustrated by, we didn’t convert some opportunities in their 22, lost a little bit of cohesion at the attacking ruck, our lineout maul didn’t function as well as we would like,” said Jackman.

“But having said that, our scrum was rock solid and with our kicking game, although we made some errors, we dominated territory.

“In those conditions that was pretty smart and our defence looked much more comfortable; to only concede five points against a team like Zebre who like to offload and run from their own half [was pleasing].

“We know how hard it is to win in this competition, so we are pleased to get a win.

“You are kind of expecting us to maybe give them a breakaway try and be panicking in the last minute! But we closed it out reasonably comfortably and we are happy with four points.

“This team is still growing and we are reasonably content, but we have got a lot of work to do.”

Jack Dixon suffered a ‘stinger’ on his right arm in the opening minutes that led to him being taken off at half-time but the Dragons, who have centres Tyler Morgan, Tiaan Loots and Connor Edwards all sidelined, are hopeful that it is nothing serious.

Jarryd Sage did well off the bench when partnering Adam Warren in midfield.