Forwards Coach Luke Narraway has challenged Dragons to transfer two powerful performances on home soil on the road as they prepare to travel to Italy this weekend.
The Men of Gwent have impressed at Rodney Parade over the last two weekends as they defeated Munster before being narrowly edged out by the Cell C Sharks in the BKT United Rugby Championship.
Narraway has been delighted by the way the squad has evoked the ‘Rodney Parade spirit’ with two games played out to a vocal home support.
But now he acknowledges the task is to take that away from Newport and produce the same emotional and physical display.
“We spoke before the Munster game about getting back to performances at Rodney Parade of yesteryear,” he said.
“The Rodney Parade that I remember coming to was a horrible place to come to, it was a hard-fought game and teams didn’t relish coming to Newport.
“We let that slip last year and it was about performances and rekindling that Rodney Parade spirit, getting the fans involved and making sure that they were proud of our performance.
“Obviously it would have been nice to cross the line against Sharks and get that one through, but I was still tremendously proud of the performance.
“It’s now about matching that performance away from home.
“We’ve got two games away and where emotional levels were good at home, we need to make sure that stays in surroundings that we’re obviously not known to.
“That’s the message this week, we’re going out there to build on those two home games and hopefully see what we can get from them.”
One player who will miss the game in Italy is captain Will Rowlands.
The Wales international, who impressed in all three Tests against the Springboks last summer, started against Edinburgh, Munster and the Sharks.
“Will played a lot of rugby over the summer and we looked after him in pre-season,” said Narraway.
“We got him in at the start of the season and he has been outstanding.
“We will look this week to let him recharge the batteries and we have a fantastic number of options to call upon in the second row.
“Will gets time to regenerate and it gives opportunities to others in an area where we are blessed.”
