Firstly, it’s great to be back and to have the opportunity to lead the Dragons. It’s been a very frustrating time for me on the sidelines and I’m really looking forward to taking on Toulouse this evening.
It was great to see the supporters who made the trip out to Glasgow last weekend. The boys all heard you singing on the terraces and although we weren’t able to get a win, it does make a difference to us to have the strong travelling support we have.
We’ve had a difficult start to the season in terms of results but to put things into contxt in terms of last season, perhaps the order of matches at the start of last season were kinder to us than this year. Having said that, we are keen to improve our performances and are working hard on the training pitch to put things right.
I’d like to say well done to Jevon Groves from the Dragons and Rhys Jones from Newport who were out in Delhi over the last couple of weeks playing sevens for Wales in the Commonwealth games with Jevon captaining the national side. It’s a great honour to play for your country and an even greater one to lead the team so well done to both the boys.
In other news, Mike Poole and James Leadbeater were out in the community this week supporting World Mental Health Day. Given the choice of workshop to attend, the boys both turned down “food and Mood” and “Laughter” and opted instead to join in the belly-dancing class! We’ll see if they’ve picked up any moves that they can use on the pitch.
It’s good to see that our new players have really settled in now at the Dragons. With a lot of the dual-contracted players here, there have been a lot of new faces to get to know. Fortunately, it’s been easy with Royce Cadman as his mullet makes him widely recognisable to everyone. Unless you’re too young to remember the early 1980’s…
Enjoy the match
Ashley Smith
