Gloucester head coach Dean Ryan was relieved with his side's EDF Energy Cup win against Newport Gwent Dragons.
Pressure of playing three competitions means "something will give"
Gloucester head coach Dean Ryan was relieved with his side's 25-20 EDF Energy Cup victory against Newport Gwent Dragons, particularly given the competition's place alongside both the Guinness Premiership and the Heineken Cup.
The Cherry and Whites scored a battling win thanks to tries from Lesley Vainikolo, who got two, hooker Scott Lawson and England international Iain Balshaw.
Meanwhile, the Dragons grabbed touchdowns from winger Richard Fussell, New Zealand number eight Grant Webb and replacement Jason Tovey to earn a losing bonus point.
While admitting his side were not correcting mistakes made in previous matches, Ryan also blamed their less-than-stellar performance on the need to juggle his squad against the demands of three competitions.
He said: "These EDFs are fraught with the amount of changes you have got to your side and you put that on top of some mistakes that we are repeating in our side and we lack cohesion.
"We had similar mistakes last week and it makes some things we did well look rather shaky.
"The Dragons worked very hard and their kicking game in the first half never gave us any field position. You have to give them credit and it took us a long time to get going, slightly longer than we hoped."
As for the tournament itself, Ryan added: "It is very difficult to have the priorities of the Premiership and the Heineken Cup and then think they can still have the same priorities for a third competition.
"We are trying but the amount of rugby will ultimately dictate that we cannot be successful. You are always in danger, when you run three tournaments alongside each other that something will give.
"It is not a priority it is just that players cannot play that amount of high intensity rugby all the time."
Dragons 'too soft'
Having seen his side go ahead twice in the match, Dragons boss Paul Turner lamented their eventual defeat and said the game was there to be won.
Turner, once an assistant coach at Gloucester, said: "We were at the stage today that, if you are going to win at Kingsholm, it was there for us. It was on the table but we were too loose and too soft.
"We talked to the players about coming to these places and, when victory is in sight, you have got to nail it.
"I'm pretty disappointed at the way it went from us very quickly. We planned all week about areas we wanted to play against Gloucester and you can see that from our tries.
"I'm just generally cheesed off. Being here is a great place to come and parade your skills and many of our side did that today. I don't think Gloucester actually won it today, I think we lost it."
