The two teams came into the game separated by four points in the race for the final West Asia Premiership play-off spot, but the bonus point victory for Dragons lifted Henry Paul’s side a point above of Exiles, who now only have one game remaining this season.

Crucially, Dragons still have three, so victory puts them on the cusp of the post-season and reigning West Asia and UAE champions Exiles on the brink of disaster.

After two narrow defeats, Dragons winger Emerson Bessell was left “ecstatic” by this crucial triumph.

“Exiles are old rivals so we’re happy to come off with a win after a hard-fought game,” he said.

“It hasn’t quite come off the last few weeks and we don’t think we got we deserved in recent weeks, but today it just clicked.”

Deflated Exiles scrum-half Ed Armitage was at a loss to explain the reason for such contrasting halves from his side.

“It was 8-5 at half time and we said if we could keep the ball and increase the pressure we could win, but every time we took it into contact we lost it,” he said.

“They had four or five boys at the breakdown who were class at recovering the ball, Matt Henry and Ben Blamyre in particular.

“They were clamping on and we just weren’t quick enough to the ruck.”

The wind whistled around The Sevens as the action flew from end to end.

Fly-half Dan Bell opened the scoring in the 18th minute with a penalty from just inside his own half but Exiles flanker Danny Waddy continued his purple tryscoring patch with another score as the hosts went ahead.

They would have been happy with their lead heading into the interval but on the stroke of half time Dragons responded, Dan Minks powering over.

A grippingly tight encounter was surprisingly turned into a second half blowout as Exiles unexpectedly collapsed. South African hooker Gio Fourie rumbled over after good pressure and a brace for compatriot and namesake Ryno then saw Exiles buckle.

Their defending was almost non-existent as the UAE winger scored twice without so much as a hand being laid on him.

Exiles grabbed a scant consolation in the final minute when Michael Stubbs dotted down, but Gerber saw his conversion sail wide, with Exiles’ play-off hopes also drifting away.