DIRECTOR of rugby Lyn Jones said Newport Gwent Dragons were the architects of their own downfall after their wastefulness ensured their alarming slide in the RaboDirect Pro12 continued.

Edinburgh left a sodden Rodney Parade with the spoils after edging to a 23-19 victory on Thursday evening, a win that saw them leapfrog the Dragons in the table.

The region have now claimed just seven points from a possible 35 since the turn of the year – a surprise victory against title hopefuls Glasgow their solitary success – and have slid down to ninth.

Their advantage over Cardiff Blues in the race to avoid being Wales' worst, an unwanted tag that the Dragons have had for seven out of 10 seasons, is now just three points with four games remaining.

And yet they should have been toasting a morale-boosting victory last night.

The hosts had the better of the game and their pack were furious that a last-minute assault on the Edinburgh line failed to be rewarded with a penalty try.

"One of the worst scrum decisions I have ever seen. #robbed," Tweeted tighthead Duncan Bell before deleting the post and replacing it with "Sorry, what I meant to say was, that was a great scrum decision and I wholeheartedly agree with the decision.... Well done ref."

But Jones felt that they should not have even been in a position where they were chasing the game at the death.

"We can refer to a scrum at the end of the game but the scoreboard was shaped by the first 25 minutes when we failed to take our points," said the director of rugby.

"To score just six (through two Jason Tovey penalties) was not enough for the territory and pressure that we had; that shaped the end of the game.

"We've got to take it on the chin and move forward. The boys have responded to a pumping against Connacht (24-8 a fortnight ago) but the result wasn't to be and that's the reward that you want for working hard.

"There were lots of good individual performances but we were guilty of entering their 22 and kicking the ball away needlessly when we needed to be a little bit more positive."

The Dragons are now looking for Edinburgh to do them a favour by beating the Blues at Meggetland next Friday so that they remain above their Welsh rivals by the time they take on Treviso at the Stadio Monigo the following day (kick-off 6pm).