NO HAPPY RETURN FOR DRAGONS BOSS

ILO Tiatia was left to lament a miserable final quarter as the Dragons left Swansea on the back of a nine-try defeat.

- BEN JAMES Rugby writer

The visitors were in the contest until the interval when they trailed by just four points.

But they wilted as the Ospreys began to turn the screw and their wait for a second United Rugby Championship victory of the season goes on.

“We were in the game and the boys were competitive but we lost our shape defensively in the last 25 minutes,” said Dragons head coach Tiatia.

“The learnings are how do we stay in the match.

“We are where we are at and we want to be so much better than we were in that final 20 minutes.”

It was a miserable return to the stadium where Tiatia made his name in Wales by becoming an Ospreys icon.

Tries from Will Spencer, Dewi Lake, Ben Warren, Kieran Hardy, Reuben Morgan-Williams and braces from Dan Edwards and Keelan Giles kept the home side's chances of a top-eight finish alive.

In recent weeks, the Ospreys’ resurgence under Mark Jones had stuttered a little.

Back-to-back derby defeats to the Scarlets and Cardiff in the league sandwiched their European knock out exit in the Challenge Cup quarter-final.

Defeat to the Dragons would not only seen them lose three in a row for the first time since October, but it would have effectively marked the end of their hopes of reaching the play-offs, with away games against the Sharks and Lions to come.