BERNARD Jackman hopes that his Dragons players can thrive at the start of the Guinness PRO12 now that they aren’t fearing for their futures.

The Irishman, who has taken over from Kingsley Jones as head coach, is fresh from his first week working with his new squad at their Ystrad Mynach training base.

He is charged with improving the fortunes of a team that finished with just Zebre beneath them in the league last season after enduring a slide in the second half of the campaign.

There were extenuating circumstances for a collapse that saw them end the season with a 12-game losing streak in all competitions going back to a January win against Enisei-STM in the European Challenge Cup.

The Dragons players and staff were unsure of how the vote by Newport RFC shareholders on the sale of Rodney Parade to the WRU, essential for the takeover of the region, would affect them.

After the Black and Ambers gave the green light, the Dragons squad are now on the books of the governing body and Jackman hopes it will ensure they start the 2017/18 season with no distractions.

“All I want our players and coaches to worry about is getting into their car on a Monday morning, going to training, getting better, going home and doing the things that they need to do to come back in the next day to be better again,” said the former Grenoble boss.

“I don’t want them worrying about whether they are going to get paid this month or if the club is going to be around in a year’s time.

“That’s not a good environment for a professional athlete.

“With the WRU backing, that’s been put to bed and now all we need to worry about is being better.”

Jackman doesn’t have a huge budget to work with but the former Ireland hooker is hopeful that the Dragons can follow the lead of one of his former provinces.

Connacht made huge strides under the stewardship of Pat Lam and won the PRO12 title under the now Bristol boss in 2016.

While the Dragons don’t have the spending power of the men from Galway, Jackman is looking to build a similar culture.

“I see a lot of similarities in the story,” he said. “Connacht were underfunded, not on the pitch but in terms of the backroom staff and the environment they could create for the players in terms of professionalism.

“Pat Lam tapped into the culture of Connacht and created an identity and a gameplan suited around that skill set, and recrui-ted players for that.

“We saw the result. I’d like to think we could have a similar process here in our own way.

“It does give you hope and create optimism.”