Former Dragons head coach Bernard Jackman says he has "no regrets" over his ill-fated tenure with the Welsh club and says he is ready to turn his attention to whatever project comes up next.
Speaking on Tuesday's OTB AM with Ger Gilroy and Eoin Sheahan, the former Ireland international admitted he had to take responsibility for results that he said "were not good enough".
"I have no regrets over what we tried to do there," he said. "It was always a rebuild project. It was always like that, unless we got a lot of luck, the next man or the man after him would benefit from it.
"We had 21 players who debuted last year when they were teenagers."
He continued: "I think you need experience through your team. We did what Ulster did on the weekend and threw a lot of young players out at the same time and that's not good for them either.
"It's too hard for them to learn. A big focus on the summer was bringing in people like Richard Hibbard and Ross Moriarty to give us a bit more spine in our team when we had to rotate. When you have a small squad and you're developing players, you will have to rotate.
"I think definitely for me as a coach last year, we probably put too many young players out at the same time. While they did get the experience, it was probably too traumatic for them.
"Without enough experienced players in the side, it hampered their ability to learn from the experience."
While [young players] did get the experience, it was probably too traumatic for them.
Bernard Jackman watches his players warm-up as they prepare to take on Leinster.The 42-year-old described the eye-opening experience of coaching abroad and highlighted some of the issues affecting the game in Wales today.
"The big problem for Welsh rugby at the moment is funding and Dragons have the lowest funding.
"There are a couple of meetings on over the next few days to try and rectify that balance. Hopefully the Dragons and Welsh rugby will get the funding they need to be competitive.
"It's very much the Irish teams who are looking strong in the PRO14. The issue here is with funding and the good thing for me was that we developed a lot of really young players.
"Results weren't good enough and as head coach I have to take responsibility for that.
"Definitely I've learned a lot and I'm looking forward to putting that into practice somewhere else.
"I would go back to assistant coach if it was at the right club and if it was a good head coach that I could serve an apprenticeship under. But I do love head coaching as well so we'll see.
"The thing is when you're out of work and you're waiting to get back in - you're waiting for someone else to be out. That's not a nice thing."
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