Dragons captain Tom Willis returns to lead the Men of Gwent and Tom Cheeseman gets his first callup in Dragons colours as they take on the Scarlets tonight at Rodney Parade (KO 7:05pm).
Phil Price replaces Hugh Gustafson and Adam Hughes comes in for Matthew Pewtner as Head Coach Paul Turner makes just three changes from the team that faced the Blues last weekend.
“Our win against Glasgow was pretty convincing but there was still a lack of cohesion,” said Turner. “We finished last season with about seven first-team players on crutches and nine players who didn’t return to training until the 23rd August, we have not started as we would have liked, but the problems are mainly caused by the lack of training time together.”
“We’ve had some great battles with the Scarlets over the years – and some controversial ones too and they are serious opposition. They have a very good set-piece and lots of quality players. Although they got off to what seemed a very poor start in Italy, Treviso have since shown that far from being the also-rans in the league, they are serious competitors in this competition.”
“We missed 23 first-up tackles against the Blues and if you do that you are going to get punished for it. We need to be more clinical tonight and ensure that our defence is well-organised and well-executed. Our coaches worked very hard last season to create a style of play which has been effective and demonstrated some great rugby, but we have to ensure that we keep the standard even when we have key players out.”
Dragons: Will Harries, Adam Hughes, Tom Riley, Rhodri Gomer Davies, Aled Brew, Matthew Jones, Wayne Evans, Phil Price, Tom Willis (C), Ben Castle, Luke Charteris, Rob Sidoli, Danny Lydiate, Robin Sowden-Taylor, Gavin Thomas
Replacements: Lloyd Burns, Nigel Hall, Hugh Gustafson, Adam Jones, Andrew Coombs, Shaun Connor, Nicky Griffiths, Tom Cheeseman
