Pro14: Ceri Jones has faith in 'old-school' Dragons
- Published
Ceri Jones won two Wales caps on their 2007 tour to Australia
Interim coach Ceri Jones hopes Dragons can produce consistently strong performances after an "old-school Gwent rugby" Judgement Day win over Scarlets.
The shock 34-32 victory stunned Scarlets as Dragons' season ended with a fifth Pro14 Conference B win.
Not for the first time, Dragons were by far the worst performing Welsh region during 2018-19.
But Jones said with some "monkeys off their backs", Dragons must "build off the back of it".
He is one of the contenders to be named permanent Dragons coaching boss having taken over from Bernard Jackman in December.
Former Newport, Harlequins and Wales prop Jones said: "We showed against Scarlets just how tough we can be, how resilient we can be and how hard working we can be.
"That sound like traits to me of an old-school Gwent team - they are generally quite tough, generally hard-working and pretty resilient so if we start to show those traits going forward, I'll be very proud of the team."
'I don't often lose my temper'
Dragons earned their first league win away from Rodney Parade since 2015 and a first-ever Judgement Day win at the seventh time of asking.
They were outscored by five tries to four, but a late Matthew Screech touchdown, Jason Tovey's conversion and a missed Rhys Patchell drop-goal attempt for Scarlets helped Dragons celebrate a memorable win on Welsh rugby's big stage.
Dragons had trailed 17-6 at the break and fought back after Jones' sharp words at the break prompted a response.
"Scarlets played very well to be fair to them so it wasn't a victory out of luck or anything else, but hard work and determination so yes, I'm very proud of the boys," said Jones.
"It was an interesting discussion at half time, let's say.
"I don't often lose my temper, but I did a bit because I felt we controlled the first 15 minutes.
"We gave a dubious yellow card away (for Hallam Amos) and off the back of that we go a little bit crazy and try to go into midfield and tried a bit of magic, which we didn't really need to do."
The fight-back included a brace of Screech tries, another by Jack Dixon and Josh Lewis' interception effort.
"The challenge now for us is to turn that into consistent performances throughout the year," added Jones.
"We've got to take confidence from this now and we've got to move forward.
"From our point of view I think we've been pretty good in the Welsh derbies throughout the season.
"But we need to be better than that as well - we understand where we finished in the league and understand we can't raise our game just for Welsh derbies so that's a challenge for the boys.
"I spoke before the game about giving a performance that we're proud of and something that can give us momentum going into next season.
"At times we've shown what sort of team we can be going forward. Consistency now would be the key.
"Can we keep that going? Can we keep that level of intent? If we show those characteristics that I've spoken about, I think we're going to be a difficult team to beat."