Cardiff maintain dominance over Dragons with bonus-point win

Cardiff continued their impressive record against the Dragons by taking their winning run in the fixture to 15 matches with a 31-14 bonus-point victory at the Arms Park.

The Dragons have not beaten the capital region since Boxing Day 2014 and their unhappy evening was compounded by a serious injury to flanker Taine Basham.

Fellow international Josh Adams also left the field with an injury to cause watching Wales head coach Wayne Pivac some concern.

Adams was among the try-scorers for Cardiff, with Rhys Carre, James Botham and Thomas Young also on the sheet. Jarrod Evans converted all four and added a penalty.

Angus O’Brien and Bradley Roberts scored the Dragons’ tries, with JJ Hanrahan converting both.

Evans missed a long-range penalty before his side took the lead and it was the outside-half’s long pass which gave Adams the chance to evade two defenders to score.

Two minutes later, Cardiff had another. The Dragons conceded their fourth penalty in the opening 15 minutes and the hosts made them pay for their ill-discipline.

From a lineout 15 metres out, Carre brushed away some weak tackling to score under the posts, with a second conversion from Evans giving his side a 14-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Yellow-carded

The Dragons were second best in that period, but they responded by building up their first spell of pressure and were rewarded when a well-timed pass from Hanrahan saw O’Brien force his way over.

The Gwent region then suffered a blow when scrum-half Rhodri Williams was harshly yellow-carded for ankle-tapping Max Llewellyn when he was on the floor after making a tackle.

The home side took immediate advantage by moving the ball wide for temporary replacement Botham to power through O’Brien’s tackle for Cardiff’s third try.

The Dragons’ miserable half continued when Basham departed in considerable pain with what appeared to be a potentially serious arm injury.

After the restart it was Cardiff’s turn to lose a player, with Adams leaving the field holding his wrist before the Dragons came back into contention when Roberts crashed over for their second try.

However, that was as close as the Dragons got as Evans kicked a penalty before making a superb break to send Young away on a 45-metre run to the line to seal a bonus-point victory.