MARTIN Johnson, Warren Gatland and Darren Edwards were all reading from the same script on Saturday – great win but there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

Newport Gwent Dragons’ acting head coach will have been pretty chuffed at most of his side’s display and it is always nice to be able to dissect a performance after adding five points to the league tally.

They outscored Edinburgh by five tries to three in an entertaining game at Rodney Parade and it was a victory that was more comfortable than the score suggests.

The Dragons could have really put the boot into the Scots had Jason Tovey worn his kicking boots.

It was a balanced performance – for every lively break from Will Harries or Adam Hughes there was a good, honest drive from Robert Sidoli or Joe Bearman, for every neat Jason Tovey chip there was a solid hit from Andrew Coombs or Tom Willis.

The hosts showed some ambition but only after earning the right to go wide and they profited from doing the basics solidly.

The scrum continues to steadily improve (despite some harsh refereeing from Alan Falzone) while the lineout went well, especially close to the Edinburgh line.

Skipper Tom Willis hit his man five metres out to set in motion the move for the first try by Phil Price and repeated the trick for Lewis Evans and Andrew Coombs to score pushover tries.

Such basics will be needed at Aironi at the weekend as the set piece is the heartbeat of any Italian side.

It must be said that the post-Paul Turner fixture list has been kind to the Dragons and the recently-elevated coaching team have been given a great opportunity to get their reign off to a flying start.

A trip to face Aviva Premiership strugglers Sale and home clashes against a youthful Scarlets side and an Edinburgh one without their Scotland players are not the most daunting.

But a team can only beat what is in front of them and, with their confidence on the up, the Dragons have the chance to finish the season with a flourish.

The coaches will be aware that there were still plenty of negatives on Saturday, notably a sloppy start and the way that their charges seemed to switch off for the last half hour once the game was in the bag.

But a five-pointer against a pretty solid Edinburgh side despite Scotland absentees is not to be sniffed at, especially when the signs didn’t look good early on.

There appeared to be no danger in the fourth minute when the Scots worked the ball towards their right wing but a Tim Visser kick over the top and a nifty Lee Jones chase led to an easy seven points.

The Dragons responded superbly and were rewarded for kicking a penalty to the corner rather than going for the posts.

Willis hit his man and they tested the Edinburgh with some powerful charges before making the most of an overlap down the left, prop Price the beneficiary of neat hands by Bearman.

Chris Paterson added a penalty to his earlier conversion but the Dragons took command with three quick-fire tries before the break.

The first on 27 minutes was a comical one when Jones turned from hero to villain when making a mess of gathering a kick through by centre Ashley Smith on his own line.

The Edinburgh wing looked ruefully at the Parade turf but it wasn’t the grass was at fault for him gifting five points to Tovey.

The Dragons edged in from on 33 minutes when Evans was at the bottom of the pile of bodies that drove over the visitors’ line and they were in total command when Smith was put over by the lively Harries.

It was the first time that the Dragons had scored four tries in the first half since December 2009 against Leinster and it could have been game over had Tovey’s radar not been awry - the fly-half landed just one of five first-half attempts, missing nine points-worth of kicks.

He did bisect the posts with an early penalty in the second half and then Coombs landed the killer blow with half an hour left.

The blindside flanker has no trouble to crossing the whitewash with Newport – he averages a try every five games for the Black and Ambers – but has had to bide his time at regional level.

The elusive try came on Saturday and Coombs can’t have had too many easier ones, waltzing over after the Edinburgh maul defence from a five-metre lineout offered him a clear route straight through the middle. It was job done at 30-10 but the Dragons then became a tad sloppy rather than going for the jugular.

Edinburgh made the scoreline respectable thanks to close range tries by Visser and prop Geoff Cross but they fell one point and one try short of bonus points.

Dragons: W Harries, A Hughes, M Watkins, A Smith (P Leach 65), A Brew, J Tovey (M Jones 68), W Evans (M Petri 76), P Price (H Gustafson 62), T Willis (captain, L Burns 57), D Way, S Morgan, R Sidoli (A Brown 73), A Coombs, L Evans (H Ellis 40), J Bearman.

Scorers: tries – P Price, J Tovey, L Evans, A Smith, A Coombs; conversion – J Tovey; penalty – J Tovey.

Edinburgh: C Paterson, L Jones (J Thompson 69), B Cairns, J Houston (J King 54), T Visser, D Blair, G Laidlaw (captain), K Traynor (L Niven 56), A Kelly, G Cross, C Hamilton (E Lozada 51), F McKenzie, S Newlands (R Grant 61), A MacDonald, N Talei.

Scorers: tries – L Jones, T Visser, G Cross; conversions – C Paterson (2); penalty – C Paterson Referee: Alan Falzone (Italy) Attendance: 4,277 Argus star man: Robert Sidoli