Bath's Butch James stretches the Dragons' defence at The Rec © Getty Images

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Matches: Bath Rugby 13 - 9 Dragons

Teams: Bath Rugby | Dragons | England | Wales

Bath head coach Steve Meehan is hoping Newport Gwent Dragons can prove a major stumbling block to rivals Toulouse in Pool Five of the Heineken Cup.

Meehan was forced to watch his own side's much-vaunted attacking game flounder repeatedly on the Welshmen's stubborn defence until Andrew Higgins' 67th-minute game breaker sealed an uncomfortably narrow 13-9 victory at the Recreation Ground. "If they defend like they did today, they'll cause problems for anyone," said Meehan.

"They do work very hard for each other."

Reflecting on his own side's performance, he added: "We played some sound rugby but never really nailed it. We got turned over too often and Newport came out and defended very well, as we expected."

Meehan denied there had been a clear reaction to their own narrow defeat at Toulouse the previous weekend, saying: "We trained very, very well and there was never a fear that our preparation was poor or that we would suffer as a result of last week's disappointment. But we were not as mentally strong as we can be.

"It was difficult for the players but there were a couple of options up our sleeve that we had and didn't use. We will be upset with ourselves in that regard."

Meehan explained: "What we said at half-time was that we hadn't gone out and achieved what we needed to do. For instance, we talked about owning the ball - if you keep turning over the ball you make it easier for the opposition."

Dragons coach Paul Turner, though disappointed, said: "We felt we prepared well all week. "We certainly thought we could beat Bath if we fronted-up for 80 minutes. It was our best defensive performance in the three years I've been at the club. The bonus point is a reward but Bath are the best footballing side in England, as we saw last week.

"Watching them against Toulouse was a bit frightening but today we couldn't quite get Bath playing as deep as we wanted them to. I'm really proud of the players and the bonus point was well deserved."

Turner did have a special word for veteran back-row Colin Charvis, saying: "You could do with five of him. He is the best in the business with his nose over the ball. Our two Australian centres, Rory Sidey and Marc Stcherbina, also were excellent in defence.

"Having said that I've been coming down here for years with different clubs. It's deja vu doing well and losing in the last 10 minutes."