Steff Hughes wants Dragons to use the EPCR Challenge Cup campaign to fire momentum back into the season – after admitting the manner of defeat to Emirates Lions had been a painful one to stomach.
Frustrated captain Hughes could not hide his disappointment after the 49-24 loss to the 14-men of Emirates Lions in Johannesburg and conceded self-inflicted wounds had undermined the performance.
Harri Keddie, Ashton Hewitt and Bradley Roberts crossed the whitewash at Emirates Airline Park – but Dragons were guilty of making repeated errors that a clinical Lions side punished.
“It’s really disappointing,” admitted Hughes. “There were aspects of that game that were good, especially in attack in the first half.
“We got ourselves back into a position to compete around 60 minutes, but we just weren’t accurate enough and gave them too many easy ins.
“It’s easy tries that we should have avoided - it is really frustrating.
“It’s not through a lack of effort, that is always there with this group, but we are a bit desperate to try and score and move the ball. “We make errors that give teams easy opportunities to get out.
“They scored three or four breakaway tries that came from our errors. We need to be more accurate to avoid that.
“Europe has always been something we have targeted and hopefully this will give us an opportunity to get some momentum going into the Christmas derby games,” he added.
“Our attack has been good at times in South Africa; we’ve had the mindset to try and move the ball and it’s something we will continue to work hard on.
“We won’t be playing in these conditions next weekend; it will be a lot colder so we will have to adjust the weather and Oyonnax.
“We’ll back ourselves in attack, we just need to be more accurate.”
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Europe has always been something we have targeted and hopefully this will give us an opportunity to get some momentum going into the Christmas derby games...
