No bonus for Mallinder

Northampton coach Jim Mallinder had mixed feelings after his side's 28-3 win over the Dragons.

Turner reckons his side will learn from experience

Northampton coach Jim Mallinder had mixed feelings after his side's 28-3 win over the Dragons at Franklin's Gardens. After his side dominated but failed to pick up a bonus point, Mallinder said: "It was a convincing win, I'll take that and we will move on from here. "We were a bit sloppy at times, in key moments we should have done better. We need to look after the ball more." Asked about the Dragons' scrummaging problems - they had three front-rowers sin-binned - Mallinder added: "The referees have a difficult job to do. It was disappointing that the Dragons prop was yellow carded late in the game. "We had the drive on at two scrums, he gets carded and it's passive scrums and we lose momentum. That should have been our bonus point try." Paul Turner, the Dragons' coach said: "I love coming to places like this. It will have done our players a lot of good. "We had to match a very strong Northampton side, which are probably the best in England, for intensity which we failed to do. In addition our error count was far too high." To add to Turner's problems in the front row, hooker and captain for the night Steve Jones left the field before the interval. On this Turner said: "His knuckles are very badly swollen and it's too early to say whether there is a break."