NEW Dragons boss Bernard Jackman is set to bolster his coaching staff – declaring that he wants specialists rather than jacks of all trades.

The former Ireland hooker has spent his third week with his charges after taking over the Rodney Parade reins from Kingsley Jones.

He has been putting the squad through their paces in Ystrad Mynach along with backs coach Shaun Connor, who has been with the region since arriving as academy skills coach in 2014, and forwards coach Ceri Jones, who joined from Ebbw Vale last summer.

“They have been great and a big help to me with their knowledge of the players and their personalities,” said Jackman. “We’ve started with a blank page and I didn’t care what the hierarchy was last year.

“I’ve enjoyed working with Ceri and Shaun, they are good coaches, but what we need to do is bring in a little bit more experience, knowledge and manpower and then be very clear about who is doing what.

“What I like in a staff is real clarity about roles and responsibility and at the moment we are finalising our backroom staff, which will get bigger. Soon we will announce who is looking after what.”

With the Welsh Rugby Union now in charge of the Dragons, Jackman will be able to use Warren Gatland’s international coaching team as a sounding board.

But the Irishman’s prime concern is bringing in more bodies so that his staff can concentrate on doing their nominated job to the best of their ability.

“This is my third week with the players but the two weeks before that I was doing an audit,” said Jackman, who spent the previous six years with Grenoble in France.

“Part of that showed that we were a little bit under-staffed, so for me it’s about bringing in quality that will help our players perform better.

“Also when we get everybody on board we will have people responsible for one, or a maximum of two, areas.

“I will then manage that and nobody interferes with that apart from me, because there’s nothing worse than being an assistant coach and having a mid-season or end-of-season review where you are told what you are doing is not good enough when there have been four people telling you what to do.

“What I like to do is give a coach an area, get them to convince me how it is going to work and then I manage it while they are responsible for it.

“That’s really important and perhaps there were mixed messages last season because there were so few staff.

“The model environments have real clarity of role and people are experts in one area, then it all ties in together.”