NEWPORT Gwent Dragons have been sent to the dungeon in a bid to tackle their defensive shortcomings.

Defence coach Rob Appleyard has been suiting up his charges and sending them into combat.

They are doing no holds barred, one-on-one tackling in a room that has been labelled ‘the tackle dungeon’.

“The boys do it once a week and absolutely love it,” said Appleyard. “There’s a fear factor because they go flat out onto big crash mats and there are some major collisions.

“It’s a mental thing. Nobody can hide and I want them to fear it. I want them to realise that the harder you hit, the easier it is.

“It should make our tackling more effective and make us more confident in it.”

Like any defence coach worth their salt Appleyard is a self-confessed lover of stats but the important ones didn’t make good reading last season.

The Dragons finished seventh in the Magners League table but had the 10th best defensive record.

It’s often quoted in American sport that offence wins games, defence wins championships.

A blitz system was introduced at the tail end of last season as the region sought improvement and the demands from the coaching team are clear.

“What we look for is our completion of tackles and we would like that to be 90 per cent,” said Appleyard.

“Our effectiveness – it not being a soak-up tackle, one that affects the ball carrier – we want to be at 70 per cent.

“Get those stats and you tend to have had a very good defensive day. Anything below and you will be leaking tries.

“We were not reaching those targets last year – completion was low 80s and effectiveness was 50s.

“We’ve started doing a blitz defence so that we are more aggressive with our line speed.

“It’s higher risk but higher effectiveness and the boys have really bought into it.

“We haven’t got massive midfield players but they have a better chance of winning the collision if they tackle head-on.

“Tom Riley, Ashley Smith, Pat Leach, Adam Hughes – they’ve all bought into it and really improved defensively when we changed the policy.”

Appleyard joined the Dragons midway through last season and has admitted it was tough to make defensive changes.

The nine-times capped Wales flanker was working as Welsh Rugby Union academy skills coach but is now a permanent Dragons employee.

His appointment has led to dungeons and Dragons at Newport High School and has also caused windows to be shut to stop classes being disrupted.

“At the moment our training sessions are deafening because I want us to be intimidating,” he said.

“You might be the weakest tackler ever but if you are shouting, ‘I’ve got him, I’ve got him; up, up, up’ then it’s going to make the opposition think twice.

“The signs are good at the moment but how you go at this time of year means nothing – the proof of all our work will come in September.”