Saints prepared for 'a proper scrap' at Rodney Parade

The Welsh region lie in wait for Saints in the last 16 of the European Challenge Cup.

And the Dragons have certainly developed into a force to be reckoned with, winning back-to-back matches, against Glasgow and Edinburgh, in recent weeks.

Saints would love to do the job today to set up a home quarter-final against Harlequins or Ulster next weekend.

And attack coach Vesty said: "This is our next carrot that's out there that's a really good carrot because there are some really good teams in this competition.

"It's knockout rugby from now on and you don't get many chances to play knockout rugby as a professional rugby player because most of your games are league-based.

"When you get them you've got to use them to understand what knockout rugby is about and what it looks like, and that's a really good challenge for us as a group.

"This is a really good test.

"Can we go and beat the Dragons and move to that next step? But I'm not looking too far past that because Dragons are a really good team and it's going to be a proper scrap."