Dean Ryan has urged his Dragons to hit the ground running when the Guinness PRO14 season resumes for the region this Friday evening at Rodney Parade.
Dragons welcome Connacht to Newport (kick-off 7.35pm) in a rearranged league encounter – the original date was postponed due to Covid-19 tests.
Ryan’s men face back-to-back rearranged dates – with Edinburgh to follow seven days later – as they start a period that will see them face five home games out of seven league dates.
The Director of Dragons Rugby insists Heineken Champions Cup rugby must remain the target for the squad and so it is imperative they start well against Connacht this Friday.
“We are really looking forward to this seven-game run to get better,” he said.
“If we get back to the levels that we were performing at then we can challenge ourselves to get better results. This week is the start of it.
“We were as robust and competitive as I have seen us after the Benetton and Glasgow games.
“We were looking in control of games rather than hanging on and hoping something would happen.
“That's where we need to get back to and we need to do it quickly so that we can maintain being competitive in our conference.
“We now have a couple of games that we missed (earlier in the season) and we have go to make it count.
“I think we have come out of periods like our quarantine quite accurately before, so we have to challenge ourselves again to hit the ground running on Friday and get into this run as quickly as we can so we can start to gather some momentum.”
If we get back to the levels that we were performing at then we can challenge ourselves to get better results... This week is the start of it...
