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REACTION: We're on the right track - Jackman

Head Coach Bernard Jackman felt frustration after a second home draw of the season but positives shone through against Conference leaders Glasgow.

After a bright start, scoring the first try, the Dragons slipped ten points behind as Glasgow grew in confidence, but the hosts fought back bravely at Rodney Parade to secure a share of the spoils in the Guinness Pro14 clash.

"I'm massively happy with our effort," said Jackman, "(Glasgow) are the top team in both conferences and even though they are missing players they were very well organised with a lot of pace and power everywhere.

"We dealt with that reasonably well but the problem was we had to keep defending for effort upon effort. Thankfully we’re getting fitter and that didn’t hurt us as our mental resilience is getting better and we were able to hold them out which is a big improvement on where we were earlier in the year.

"Previously when teams got any bit of pressure, possession or territory we used to crack so that’s a big step forward.

"We would have loved to have a win tonight but I think our efforts on a normal night may have got you there but when you play the best in the league you have to be better than we were, so we have no regrets about the result and I’m happy to be here with two points rather than zero.

Jackman was frustrated with a number of areas of his side's performance on the night, but reflected on the improvement he's seen since taking over in the summer.

"We’ll obviously be disappointed with three- line outs in their half second half which would have given us a chance to force something, through a maul or strike play but we lost the ball at line out time which hasn’t been a feature for us before, so we need to look at why we broke down there.

"And after a great try early we have to look at the first half too as we didn’t go for the jugular. We let them into the game and they scored. Our kick chase from kick off was pathetic and we gave them easy exits and gave them momentum and confidence.

"There' s definitely lots of areas to tighten up on, but I thought Hallam coming back, Leon the same, in what was a massively physical game and Gerard Ellis coming on for forty minutes at loosehead -  our scrum was good with him there and he gave a lot around the field in terms of carries and defence - plus our back row was good and Zane at ten although not as prominent as last week gave us some control and to have Tyler was back too which was great.

"We’re on the right track with bodies coming back. We played them in a friendly back in the summer and shipped 45 points looking like a pub team, so now if we can lock horns with the best in the league and not get beat we're going in the right direction.

'We've a run off fixtures including home games against Treviso next Sunday which we need to attack with real ambition, then we go to Ebbw Vale and out to the Kings so we’ve turned a corner in terms of how fit and organised we are and I think we can pick up a lot of points over the next six weeks.'

CLICK HERE to secure your tickets for either the Treviso game next Sunday in Newport or the following week's game against Edinburgh at Ebbw Vale.

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