At the start of the European campaign, Dragons’ trip to Benetton on Saturday would have seemed a write-off but now, thanks to three wins in four, they travel with hope.<\/p>\n
Filo Tiatia’s men are fresh from victories against Lyon, Connacht and Scarlets plus a battling performance in a 22-19 defeat by Cardiff, when they were pushing at the death.<\/p>\n
That run looked highly unlikely after Dragons slumped to a 41-17 loss at then winless Perpignan in their Challenge Cup opener.<\/p>\n
Dragons then stunned Lyon 23-21 after trailing 21-6 in the final quarter and that means one more win could be enough for qualification.<\/p>\n
If Dragons upset the odds at Benetton \u2013 who are fresh from a home loss to Edinburgh \u2013 then they will have a shot at earning a home knockout tie when hosting Newcastle in round four.<\/p>\n
More likely is a must-win versus Red Bulls, who are bottom of the Prem but could arrive in Newport with three Challenge Cup victories, in a game that kicks off the final weekend.<\/p>\n
Dragons have been strong at Rodney Parade in 2025-26 but have been poor travellers for years, so home advantage could be key and anything they can get from Parma would be welcome.<\/p>\n
Dragons fixtures<\/p>\n
Benetton (away) – Saturday, 10 January (17:30 GMT)<\/p>\n
Newcastle (home) – Friday, 16 January (20:00 GMT)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the start of the European campaign, Dragons’ trip to Benetton on Saturday would have seemed a write-off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-358440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}