Head Coach Dai Flanagan praised his Dragons after they produced the late, late show at Rodney Parade to defeat Oyonnax in a thrilling EPCR Challenge opener.
Ashton Hewitt grabbed a try to leave teams level at 7-7 before a dramatic final five minutes.
Lock Joe Davies scored his first-ever try for the Men of Gwent – on his 120th appearance – before Wales star Rio Dyer grabbed two late tries to wrap up the bonus point win.
“You can’t underestimate five-points in Europe and getting it early on is great for us,” said Flanagan.
“The pleasing thing is that is two wins on the bounce at Rodney Parade with a derby to come at home next.
“The pleasing me for me was we stuck at it,” he added.
“We were full of errors, don’t get me wrong, but in the right area of the pitch. That is a change for us.
“We kept going and we were collective on everything. We didn’t try to solve things on our own and our discipline was better tonight.
“We banged the door down for 75 minutes and didn’t get much reward. We stuck at it and got the three tries late on.”
Dragons had trailed 7-0 at the interval into a fierce and blustery wind and Flanagan was pleased with how his team adapted to the difficult conditions.
“Our first half performance was a positive. We messed up a goal line dropout that gave them seven points, but other than that we defended our line superbly,” he said.
“We could have been a bit smarter with the way we kicked. We kept putting pressure on Will Reed by passing it back 10 metres to go 15. That’s education for a young man and it is my job to help him.
“It’s how you kick in this weather. If you kick long and aimlessly you can get punished with it going dead.
“When we started putting more height on it you could see the stress in their back field, the ball moves and they can’t catch it.
“We got the big reward when Rhodri (Williams) put the box kick up, they tried to kick out and it put them under pressure. We ended up scoring off that.”
Meanwhile, Flanagan reported more positive news over centre Sio Tomkinson after he was forced off with 12 minutes left in some discomfort.
“It’s not as bad as we first thought. We initially thought it was a dislocated shoulder, but it might be more neck related,” said Flanagan.
“We’ll make sure we get him right. It might take a little bit longer than a normal stinger. But not as bad as we first thought.”
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We banged the door down for 75 minutes and didn’t get much reward. We stuck at it and got the three tries late on...
