CONSISTENCY, consistency – Wales coach Warren Gatland has said Newport Gwent Dragons need it, coach Paul Turner has said it, Dragons captain Tom Willis has said it, but somehow the team can’t seem to find it.

Their season continues to be a roller coaster, a frustrating, sometimes infuriating mixture of highs and lows, peaks and troughs as they go from one extreme to another.

They beat a strong Munster team including players of the ability and experience of Ronan O’Gara, Peter Stringer, Jean de Villiers and Doug Howlett only to follow it up with a flop against Connacht.

Then they overwhelm an all-international Ospreys team only to follow that with another disappointment against Glasgow. It’s rapidly become the story of the season as the Dragons flatter to deceive.

The common thread in all this could be based on that soap called Home and Away. For they have turned Rodney Parade into pretty much a fortress where they can banish the likes of Munster and the Ospreys, but they can’t follow it up by winning away.

Only one success all season in their travels in the Magners League, and that by a point against Edinburgh, though they also drew with Ulster.

It’s always more difficult to win away, of course it is, but the Dragons have rarely come even close, though they have shown what they can do with a stunning success against Saracens in the LV Cup at Vicarage Road, Watford.

But they can’t manage it in the league where they meet committed opposition fighting for league points and they either take their eye off the ball or they don’t seem as wholehearted as they are at home when they have the passionate Rodney Parade crowd behind them.

There are some extenuating circumstances like injuries. They hit every team, but it does show up the lack of real depth in the Dragons squad.

It affected them badly over the Christmas period after four players went down in one fateful match, the Heineken Cup tie against Biarritz in France.

They struggled to cope with the loss of key players and they suffered a second half thrashing against Cardiff Blues and even lost at home to the Scarlets in the league.

Now they have suffered another rash of injuries with key players like Aled Brew, Ashley Smith and Dan Lydiate out, while Adam Jones and Lewis Evans have been missing as well and they’ve been without Joe Bearman for months.

Brew is their biggest strike runner, Smith is their most consistent (that word again) centre and Lydiate is their strongest ball carrier, so it’s a bit of a struggle without the three of them.

On top of that Wales lock Luke Charteris, their one current international, is struggling to be fit for their next game against Edinburgh at Rodney Parade a week on Sunday which really is a must win game if they are to be certain of a place in the Heineken Cup next season.

The Dragons ought to be there anyway with the Scarlets trailing them by ten points and just three games to go. Their rivals face Cardiff Blues next, then Connacht and finally Glasgow at home, and before any of those they face a demanding Amlin Challenge Cup quarter-final against big spending Toulon in France.

If the Dragons beat either Edinburgh or the Blues at home the Scarlets realistically won’t be able to catch them because they are hardly likely to win all three remaining games with a bonus point each time as well.

Until the Glasgow game there were even hopes the Dragons would achieve an unthought of place in the inaugural league play-offs, but they have probably been dashed now especially with a tough away game against the Ospreys as their final fixture.

But given where they started from, finishing in the top three Welsh teams would still be considered a success, and it shouldn’t be forgotten that they are still second behind the Ospreys, two points ahead of the Blues.

It does look as though the Cardiff team intend finishing fast and the Dragons’ league game against them, likely to be on Friday, April 23, could well be another Rodney Parade humdinger in front of a full house.

For all their inconsistency the Dragons have still made progress on and off the field this season, so they can’t let it slip now in the final run-in.

It’s the Scarlets who could be on shaky ground with all sorts of rumours about their financial troubles surfacing.

Wales mainstay Stephen Jones and key Australian No 8 David Lyons could be forced to move for financial reasons as the Scarlets are forced to cut back, a situation which would be even more likely if they fail to get into the Heineken Cup for next season, while defence coach John Muggleton could, it is said, be on his way at the end of the season.

And the Blues haven’t been able to replace their top No 8 Xavier Rush with the player they wanted - Gareth Delve, who has chosen to turn his back on a possible return to his home club in favour of moving to Australia with the new Melbourne team.

The big spending Ospreys continue to be hugely unpopular with just about everyone, so never let it be said but the Dragons are actually in a reasonable position – they just need to stay relatively injury free, and they’ve got to get some consistency into their game.