Dragons RFC Captain Steff Hughes was ‘delighted’ with a try brace and 31-24 win over his former side Scarlets in Llanelli.
Hughes was named club captain of the Newport-based side during this pre-season campaign, after establishing himself as a key player and leader since joining the Dragons as ‘injury cover’ in 2022.
The centre scored two tries against his former club, praising his ‘excellent’ teammates for their part in the promising pre-season victory.
“It was everyone around me who enabled me to do that, for the first one Dane (Blacker) did a great job around the scrum, the forwards were excellent in the scrum and the second one it was great work from (Jack) Dixon on the inside to allow me to push through.
“Credit to everyone, players and staff for how we prepared for the two games, having a six-day turnaround was a challenge so I’m obviously pleased with the result but more importantly the performance.
“We wanna win games this year and I think we’ve made a great start to do that, it’s a team effort and I’m chuffed with how close we are as a team.”
The Dragons impressed with their defensive efforts in the late stages of the game, but their defensive discipline was poor at the end of the first half with Ben Carter and Rodrigo Martinez picking up yellow cards.
“We gave them two easy ins to our half so just being a bit more disciplined and making it more difficult for teams to attack in our 22,” the captain added.
The Men of Gwent will kick off the 23/24 URC season in two weeks’ time against Edinburgh Rugby at Rodney Parade in front of their home crowd, feeling confident with the form they’ve shown.
