DRAGONS boss Bernard Jackman will ignore criticism about his selection and keep targeting games throughout the season so that he can get more power into his first team.

The head coach was questioned in some quarters for making huge changes to his side for last week's Guinness PRO14 clash at Ulster.

The previous week the Dragons had won for the first time since January thanks to a 21-8 triumph against Connacht at Rodney Parade but Jackman retained just two players – flanker Ollie Griffiths and lock Rynard Landman – for the trip to Belfast.

The result was predictable with the Irish province romping to a 52-15 success at Kingspan Stadium, having a bonus point in the bag after just 25 minutes.

However, the boss believes that he will reap the rewards of leaving out his primary players, who had a week of toil in the gym at the Ystrad Mynach training base.

"We've a lot of work to do on our S&C (strength and conditioning), power and fitness," said the former Ireland hooker. "The players that didn't play in Ulster had a big S&C week – it was like pre-season.

"If you look at our team, we lack that power and there is only so much of that you can get in pre-season, so we have to be a bit creative and find weeks during the season where we can put a plan together to try and get that."

Jackman expects those that stayed in Wales to pick up where they left off in Newport when they entertain the Southern Kings on Saturday.

The Dragons shipped eight tries in Belfast but limited Connacht to a solitary score from a driving lineout and just two clean line breaks.

"We showed really good character at the end and some of the other stuff defensively we can fix in time," said Jackman, after his youthful side were chasing a four-try bonus at the death.

"Against Connacht we saw everybody buying into the system but that took three weeks of playing together after errors against Leinster and Edinburgh.

"The test for the Kings group is to back up the Connacht performance."