The Dragons' 30-11 defeat to the Irish region was a far from perfect start to the New Year and capped off a disappointing ten days in the RaboDirect PRO12, during which they also suffered derby losses against Cardiff Blues and Ospreys.
And after seeing his side slump to a 20-point deficit after just 27 minutes, Edwards conceded the squad, of which the average age is just 23, were restricted by their earlier efforts in bruising all-Welsh encounters.
However a win over French side Bayonne in the Amlin Challenge Cup would bring a much-needed wave of confidence to the squad and set up a potentially winner-takes-all clash with London Wasps in the final group game to reach the competition's latter stages.
"It was a disappointing start to the new year for us," said Edwards. "I thought we looked like a team playing our third game in ten days, we were very lethargic and just didn't get out of the blocks.
"It was very hard to come back from being 20 points down at the end of the first quarter. We were conscious about a very hard Christmas campaign with local derbies and we were hoping we had enough fuel in the tank to have a good start but we didn't and 20 points really did a job on us.
"All credit to Connacht, they really put us to the sword in the opening 30 minutes and by the time we came to life they were well out of sight.
"The boys dug in deep after they got their third try and we had performed well in our two derby games but the biggest lesson we learned is that it was just too late by the time we got going.
"The number of games is pretty testing and with our average age around 23 it is a big demand but if we get a result in Bayonne it would be really great and maybe tee up a big game against Wasps in the final pool game."
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