Ulster Rugby vs Dragons

September, the first Friday evening, a perfect Kingspan Stadium surface, an expectant crowd – it must mean competitive rugby for Ulster’s players and their legion of supporters. SLAYING THE DRAGONS IS FIRST PRIORITY

And with all the pre-season preparations more- or-less in place, the team which inspires such fierce loyalty begins another quest for Guinness PRO12 glory. The opposition first-up is the Newport Gwent Dragons, a club which has survived the wealth of problems in the Welsh game – political and financial – to remain one of the fortresses of the game in the Principality. It is a club with a rich history and it believes that it is on the way to restore past glories. Only Zebre and Treviso finished lower in the table last season, and four wins from 22 outings is – by any measure – a paltry return for a side which has an age profile many others would envy and for a club which has invested heavily in youth. Throughout the Rodney Parade panel are scattered players who’ve already represented Wales at every level, including the senior 15, but it is those currently emerging from the age-group teams which offer a very firm and positive view of the long term. At the helm is the hugely-respected coach Kingsley Jones, a proven master of developing younger players into mature and skilled performers, and in flanker and new captain Lewis Jones – in his eleventh season at the club – there is a prime example of local talent being nourished to the top level. Jones, ever the innovator, decided that the Dragons skipper should be sought out by seeking applications from within the squad, and there were at least eight players who held their hands up for the position. The coach professes himself delighted that Jones emerged as the leading candidate, and he’ll have the experienced help of previous captain Thomas Rhys Thomas, the hooker, and of a second vice-captain, lock Nick Crosswell. With wing Pat Howard, and international Adam Warren on the opposite flank, promising centre Jack Dixon, the experienced South African pivot Sarel Pretorius, flanker Nic Cudd and new front- row addition Tom Davies, there is clearly the spine of a more consistent and robust Dragons line-up this season. With props Boris Stankovich and Sam Hobbs in the panel, Jones and his forwards coach Ceri Jones believe the 2016/17 campaign will be much more rewarding.

Despite the disappointment of the previous campaign in the PRO12 it should not be forgotten that rarely were the Dragons totally unravelled by opponents, and there were memorable wins over Leinster and Munster to offer testament to what the squad can offer. The previous year a European Challenge Cup journey went all the way to the semi-finals, so the Dragons may have been less than flaming recently but they have the strength in depth now to really ignite. The welcome to Kingspan Stadium will be warm, perhaps even as fiercely hot as any dragon would produce, but the focus of attention for the mass of the big crowd will be on the team Director of Rugby Les Kiss and Head Coach Neil Doak send out to open a season nobody denies is one where expectations on and off the pitch are high, reasons to be cheerful great. The coaching staff doesn’t deal in the currency of excuses, it never has, and it starts a new campaign as it knew it would without several important players because of their Ireland international tour commitments in the summer, while the inevitable tranche of injuries which are the consequence of a high-impact, contact sport denies Kiss, Doak, Allen Clarke and Niall Malone the ‘full deck’ they might hanker after. But they believe that this year resources at Kingspan Stadium are greater, deeper and of higher quality than ever. Bryn Cunningham has fitted as snugly into his role as Director of Operations as he did the No. 15 jersey for Ulster for a decade, and over the last 18 months has added to the squad while keeping more than a watching brief on the ambitious crop emerging from the Academy. Of course, the signings he and the management made, which have caught the imagination are those of Springbok breakaway Marcell Coetzee – a ball-carrying, wrecking-ball New Year present for the fans if his untimely injury rehabilitation goes to plan – and of Charles Piutau, the young All Black for whom the term ‘utility back’ is a gross misnomer. Since his arrival was announced over a year ago, supporters have been watching his displays at his temporary ‘home’ at Wasps with increasingly moist lips! The English Premiership had never seen his like, and now the Guinness PRO12 is about to see its

ROD NAWN

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