He felt the Welsh region weren’t worth the full points at Rodney Parade on Saturday and that poor control led to their 27-21 defeat, and only a solitary losing bonus point.

“We weren’t good enough and didn’t deserve to win,” Flanagan said. “The correct outcome usually happens in rugby and that was the case.

“The referee had to make the right decision, because it was the last play of the game that would decide the outcome. He decided that there was no clear grounding and we can live with that.

“It was just hard to have such a high and then have to go back and try to win it again when we had a chance but knocked it on. That was a theme of the night.

“We had no control in that game. It didn’t look like us and they won all of the 50/50s all game, which was disappointing given that we were at Rodney Parade and that shouldn’t happen.”

Flanagan praised Pau, who are now a point ahead of Dragons in Pool B in fourth, with the Welsh region in the final qualifying slot in sixth, but level on points with seventh-placed Stade Français Paris.

“Pau are a tough team,” he said. “They are physical and dominated in that department, so we have to make sure that we are better.

“There were a million things that went wrong, if we are brutally honest. We lost the collisions, we didn’t fall on loose balls, we kicked a lot of possession away, we sat off and let Pau come to us, getting momentum. That is stuff that I have got to fix.”

Dragons RFC head coach Dai Flanagan had no complaints when the TMO ruled out a Max Clark try in the dying seconds of their EPCR Challenge Cup Round 2 fixture at home to Section Paloise, which would have given them victory had it been converted.