Right, last match of the season, nice sunny Friday evening, LET’S BE HAVING YOU!

It might be Charv’s last match, as he is still keeping us in suspense about his possible retirement. It is certainly Mad Frankie’s (that’s Ben Daly to you, dad) last game, which is a shame; we’ll miss his mad runs and all round aggression here at Dragged Up. Jim McCreedy is retiring after the match and if the rumours are true we might be losing another supporters’ favourite after tomorrow, so i urge everyone to get down and make it a game to remember for us all.

Nice to see Jason Tovey getting another run out at 10, and with a bit of luck Ceri Sweeney will get some time and go out with a bang an all.

Patsy Palmer is taking time off from her busy Eastenders schedule to make a first start at tighthead. There is a rumour we might be loaning her next season from the Blues academy, which will give us four tightheads on the books to break. excellent.

To make sure it’ll be a big night Brian O’Driscoll is making a first appearance at Rodney Parade for some time (if ever, in fact), and i’m sure everyone will remember Shane Horgan’s striptease before punching Ceri Sweeney last season, so i hope we’ll give them both a warm Rodney Parade welcome.

DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGONS!

Just a quicky on tonights game. The two teams are

Dragons Replacements from:
Steve Jones
Gethin Robinson
Hugh Gustafson
Andy Hall Lewis Evans
James Harris
Paul Emerick
Jason Tovey
Alex Walker

O’s replacements

16 Ed Shervington
17 Craig Mitchell
18 Mike Powell
19 Filo Tiatia
20 Martin Roberts
21 Ashley Beck
22 Kristian Phillips

Bearman is injured. The internationals are on a pre-summer tour training camp, leaving the Ospreys to field a somewhat weakened/youth team. Maybe we should let Conner know that the Dragons result tonight may have an influence on what competition he’s playing in next year…

Report on the BBC website are confirming that Bristol have signed up to play the next 2 seasons at Rodney Parade whilst the redevelopment work is undertaken at the Memorial Ground.

The Bristol games will probably be played on a Sunday, whilst the usual fixtures for the Dragons, and, of course, Newport RFC, will continue. Hopefully there will be some news (season ticket?) for those of us who might fancy watching some Guinness Premiereship games as well as our own ML games. Moreover, hopefully the increased number of games will give the coffers a fair old boost, and, who knows, some of it may find it’s way into giving the Dragons a bit of a boost too.

But firstly, let us extend a warm welcome to our Wurzel brethren. We hope you will find the atmosphere generated at Rodney Parade to your liking. A proper rugby ground, as you like it!

Dai, get that pastie factory up and running before next season kicks off!

Following what can only be politely described as a series of somewhat disappointing results over the past few games (well, going back to mid January, actually), we are now firmly locked in a battle for the final qualification spot fro the Heineken Cup.

It’s pretty much down to ourselves and Connacht for the last spot, whichever of us finishes highest will, in theory, go through to the play-off for the final cup place. Ulster are also in the mix, but with 3 home games remaining (first being tonight against Munster), one against Glasgow, it seems likely it’s a deadlock between ourselves and Connacht. This puts int perspective just how bleeping bleep bleep bad the bleep bleeping loss to Connacht at home was.

Dragons on 25 points: 3 Games remaining: Leinster (A), Ospreys (H), Leinster (H)

Ulster on 24 Points: 3 Games at home:Munster (H), Glasgow (H), Cardiff Blues (H)

Connacht on 20 points: 2 Games remaining:
Cardiff Blues (H), Ospreys (H)

However, there’s news if we make it to the HEC place play-off slot: We may not even have to play the play-off. The ERC want the play-off played on May 31st, however the Italian championship play-offs are on that date – the game that decides which Italian team enters the HEC playoff! An alternative date of 6th June has been proposed, but that will be unacceptable as (aparently) 9 players will be out of contract, and we’ll lose any players away on the tour of S.A.

So, to summarise. Start bleeping well getting some results bois.

Well, here we go. 17 current internationals in their squad of 22. Adam Black said earlier in the week if he was a betting man he’d put money on the Spreys to win. I wouldn’t, the return would be pitiful…
Still, if Saracens can beat them with a determined defence, then we can at least give them a game. With a bit of luck it will start raining about 5pm; a torrential downpour would suit us far better than them, i think.

or possibly, lambs to the slaughter, given the pretty much full strength squad the Spreys have named.

Kevin Morgan, Gareth Wyatt, Paul Emerick, Rhodri Gomer Davies, Phillip Dollman, Richard Mustoe, Ceri Sweeney, Aled Thomas, Jason Tovey, Andy Williams, Wayne Evans; Adam Black, Ben Daly, Steve Jones, Rhys Thomas, Lee Harrison, Andy Hall, Luke Charteris, Michael Owen, Colin Charvis, Joe Bearman, Lewis Evans, Richard Parks, Jamie Ringer.

no maule, fussell, pattison, gustafson, adam jones, sid.

we’ve failed in the last few matches to beat teams we were much better than. let’s hope we wear an underdogs jacket a little more comfortably.

Despite talk of players back from injury earlier in the week we’re still without Richard Parks and Gareth Maule, meaning we’ve got two outside centres starting, as Ash Smith has a foot injury. No idea what has happened to Aled Thomas; we’ve not heard he’s injured, but up and coming Wales under-18 Jason Tovey is on the bench as flyarf cover. Jason played fullback for Newport most of last year, acquitting himself pretty well, by all accounts.
Adam Black is waiting to hear on foot injury – if he’s not fit then Dai Pattison will start at loosehead, and Lee Harison will be rushed back as bench cover. Dai did well the other week against Glasgow, so lets hope for another performance for him. No sign of Richard Fussell either this week – maybe he’s being rested ahead of the Ospreys match, as he was one of the few stars of the show from the Glasgow match.
Finally it looks like Colin will be playing openside – let’s hope he’s recovered fully now – he looked a bit undercooked last time out. C’mon superman; we need you to have a good game and sign for another year.

The match against the Ospreys at the Liberty has been set for 25th April, 19:35. It’ll also be on S4C, for those who can’t get down…

oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Where to start with that performance? We lost to a team who were dreadfully limited, but still managed to find a game plan in the second half that we were unwilling to counter. Glasgow were certainly the worst team to rock up to Rodney Parade this season, and yet through a combination of comedy handling errors and um… “polite” tackling we allowed them to walk away with the victory, and any hope we had of overtaking the Ospreys to guarantee a place in the HEC next season.

Full, seething, match report here

We’ve got three weeks to sort things out before Connacht come down to RP, followed by home and away matches against Leinster and Ospreys. Connacht trail us by 8 points, with four games to play; Ospreys and Cardiff Blues at home, us and Ulster away. Hopefully Ospreys will be distracted by the lure of silverware and Leinster will feel that the jobs a good un, and we’ll get some depleted teams down to have a run out against, otherwise we may not have the option of a HEC playoff in Italy. Even that may not be enough to save us, however, as one of the two Ospreys matches may end up taking place after the end of the season, as we are unlikely to fit them both in now before the end of May; I think the Os will have the beating of Sarries next weekend, meaning they will not have a weekend slot until 17th May; the weekend before the HEC Final. That means either we’ll have to fit in a couple of midweek games, or be playing a game in June, when, according to PT, we’ll have a fair number of players out of contract. Oh dear. Every year.

First the good news: Charteris is back. and Rhys Thomas, oh, and a certain Colin Charvis… :D

Everyones favourite cardiff bound outside half is apparently injured, as are Richard Parks, Lee Harrison and Hugh Gustafson, which leaves us with some interesting choices at prop. Adam is struggling to be fit and a decision will be made on the weekend as to whether or not he plays. ho hum.

15 Kevin Morgan, 14 Gareth Wyatt, 13 Rhodri Gomer Davies, 12 Ashley Smith, 11 Richard Fussell, 10 Aled Thomas, 9 Andy Williams, 1 Adam Black/ Dai Pattison, 2 Steve Jones, 3 Rhys Thomas, 4 Adam Jones, 5 Luke Charteris, 6 Joe Bearman, 7 Jamie Ringer, 8 Colin Charvis (captain), 16 Ben Daly, 17 Gethin Robinson/ A N Other, 18 Peter Sidoli, 19 Michael Owen, 20 Paul Emerick, 21 Martyn Thomas, 22 Wayne Evans