The interim head coach has watched his side take giant strides during the festive period. The heartbreak of their last ditch defeat to Cardiff Blues was replaced with delight when they edged out the Ospreys to earn a morale boosting 23-22 victory and end their regional hoodoo.
The next objective for the Dragons is to earn an elusive away victory against Scarlets, who saw their Parc y Scarlets fortress raided by the Blues last time out. But the most important thing for Jones was to see his charges smiling once again.
“It’s been positive in the camp for a couple of weeks,” he said. “The boys have done well and the win on the weekend was really pleasing. We all felt we could have got at least a draw against the Blues at the Arms Park and then the boys backed that up with the Ospreys win, so they’re in a good place. The boys are playing for each other and really working hard and I can’t ask any more than that.
“We’re going to go down there and put our game onto the field. We showed against the Ospreys we can be very combative at the right times. We maybe didn’t have as much possession and territory as we would have liked but we really stuck in the game and we plan to repeat that.”
Ross Moriarty missed the Ospreys victory and will sit out the trip to West Wales as he continues to go through return to play protocols following a concussion. The Wales flanker watched on as his side delivered a performance to be proud of, and Jones reckons the victory could be the turning point for the Gwent region.
“I’ve been really pleased with how things have gone over Christmas and new year,” he added. “The win over the Ospreys was huge for the whole region, we din’t want to shy away from that. We had to go in there and we had to put a performance in and to get the win was huge, you can see on social media how much it meant to everyone around the region.”
