Heineken Cup - Round 4
Dragons offer fiery welcome to Biarritz
Scrum.com
December 17, 2009
Biarritz' s Julien Peyrelongue is tackled by the Dragons' Wayne Evans and Rhodri Gomer-Davieson, Biarritz v Dragons, Heineken Cup, Parc des Sports Aguilera, Biarritz, France, December 13, 2009
The Dragons tackle Biarritz with a point to prove on Friday © Getty Images
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Newport Gwent Dragons boss Paul Turner has promised a rough ride for French giants Biarritz when they arrive at Rodney Parade on Friday. The Basque club are riding high in the Heineken Cup after their third straight victory last weekend, a 49-13 thrashing of the Dragons at the Parc des Sports Aguilera.

Turner believes that defeat has not damaged the progress made by his side in recent months and has called on his players to provide a 'warm welcome' when Biarritz take to the field at a ground where Stade Francais, Perpignan and Castres have all faltered in past seasons.

"The defeat last Sunday does not detract from the good work we are doing at the Dragons," he said. "We are looking to give Biarritz a warm welcome to Rodney Parade, and if we play well enough we can beat anyone there. We are trying to use our squad as best we can, but we're not a major power in Europe. We accept that, but we like to be competitive.

"We need to win to make qualification a reality. We are playing back-to-back matches against a quality outfit, and if you make that number of errors in France as we did, then you get punished."

There was a more positive result for the Dragons' Welsh neighbours Ospreys last weekend with a 60-point hammering of Viadana in Italy setting up a tense finish to Pool 3, also containing Clermont and Leicester. Fly-half Dan Biggar is currently on top of the Heineken Cup scoring charts and has called on his side not to let their standards drop this weekend as they look for another positive result before a festive period rammed with Magners League derbies.

"We put a lot of hard work in last week in preparation for the first game, and I think that showed in the performance, we were very professional in the way we went about our business," he said. "We mustn't let those standards drop now. As much as we were happy with the result, it wasn't the perfect performance, so we know that we have areas to work on ahead of Saturday.

"Viadana have shown what they are capable of if we allow them to play rugby, and they will know a lot more about us after last week's game so we are anticipating a tough afternoon. We know what we've got to do, and there's no doubt, we'll be focussed on getting it right on Saturday before our attention turns to the Magners League for the next few weeks."

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