The Dragons had their first win of the pre-season yesterday with a comfortable lead over Kingsley Jones' Russia national team. The Dragons ended up winning 40-12 amid some impressive performances from exciting new signings.
Ashley Smith scored the first points of the game and scrum-half Joe Bedford celebrated his first try for the Dragons supported by Steffan Jones and Gavin Thomas. Jones later scored with ease after a successful line-out.
Russian flanker Kirill Kushnarev scored the first points for the visitors and a conversion by Konstantin Rachkov brought the half-time score to 19-7.
Russia came back strong in the second half with wing Igor Klyuchnikov crossing in the right corner. The Dragons responded with ten changes and three tries followed from Adam Hughes, Mike Poole and Rhys Buckley. Matthew Jones converted all three.
Newport Gwent Dragons: S Jones, M Pewtner, T Riley, A Smith, M Poole, J Tovey, J Bedford, P Price, T Willis B Castle, A Jones, S Morgan, J Groves, T Brown, G Thomas.
Subs used: A Coundley, R Buckley, D Way, A Coombs, H Ellis, W Evans, M Jones, P Leach, A Hughes, M Thomas.
Scorers – tries: A Smith, J Bedford, S Jones , A Hughes, M Poole, R Buckley ; conversions: J Tovey (2), M Jones (3)
Russia: Y Kushnarev, I Klyuchnikov, S Trishnin, I Galinaovsky, D Simplikevich, K Rachkov, A Bykanov, V Botvinnikov, V Tsnobiladze, A Khrokin, A Voytov, D Antonov, K Kushnarev, V Grachev, A Garbuzov.
Scorers – tries: K Kushnarev, I Klyuchnikov; conversions: K Rachkov
Referee: Nigel Owens (WRU).
Attendance: 2,565.
