Rob Moffat highlighted the flaws which led to Edinburgh’s 8-9 home loss endured at the hands of a dogged Dragons side, but stresses the players will learn from the experience.

A Phil Godman penalty followed by an Andrew Turnbull try was not enough to overhaul Newport’s nine-point lead and Moffat believes an ineffectual first half showing cost his players a win.

Moffat said: “We’ve got to learn as a group that our first half performance is not acceptable. We need to learn how we win and also how we get beat.

“The first half really killed us – it was a poor performance by us. We allowed them to get a nine-point lead and I thought we kicked very poorly.

“The second half was a bit better, but it was still frustrating. We had opportunities in the second half – we were on their line for about 15 minutes.

“We don’t want to make any excuses and you have to play what is in front of you, but the conditions did not help.”