Flanagan: Power of Sharks pivotal

Head Coach Dai Flanagan admitted his Dragons had failed to deal with the power of the Hollywoodbets Sharks as the Springbok inspired hosts rattled up a big victory.

The Men of Gwent endured a difficult evening at Hollywoodbets Kings Park as Sharks – who welcomed back a host of South African World Cup winners – stormed to a 69-14 success in the BKT United Rugby Championship.

Flanagan did not pull any punches after the game and conceded his side had no answer to the power of the hosts.

“When you play South African teams, it’s about dealing with their power –we couldn’t deal with their power,” he said.

“We could never get set defensively. We work hard individually and try to fix it, and they just pick us off.

“It’s not a quick fix to stop that power. We have to come here every year and we have got to match it.

“It was a tough evening. We leaked too many points too easily at the end and we know that is not good enough.

“The group work extremely hard, but they do it individually and my job is to get them to do it collectively. That comes down to discipline.

“We also missed opportunities,” he added. “Cai (Evans) gets a turnover, he has a player inside of him, and then we lose Cai on the back of it.

“We drop the ball over the line twice. We’re playing top level teams here and we’ve got to be better than that.

“I have to reflect on this performance before I think too much about the Lions. We have got to put some things to bed this week.”

Dragons will also need to look at options at fly half after Will Reed and Cai Evans were both forced off before the break in Durban.

“I will check on the HIAs but if we have lost our two ten options, with Angus (O’Brien) already injured, we have got to find a solution quickly. We must find an option inhouse,” he said.

“I thought Steff (Hughes) did a decent job, he can ball play, but your kicking game is vital over here. You don’t get any ins, so we have got to work on that.”