Hooker Elliot Dee has vowed to finish the Guinness PRO14 season strongly with Dragons after his Grand Slam exploits with Wales.
Dee is part of a 29-man tour party that has jetted out today (Tuesday) to South Africa for league fixtures with Isuzu Souther Kings and Toyota Cheetahs.
And the front row is determined to bring success on the international stage back to his home region after he missed the recent clash with Ospreys.
“It’s good to be back in with the boys, there is a good buzz,” he said. “It’s nice to be back into the familiarity of the Dragons and I’m ready to go in South Africa.
“It’s my home region, I am proud to play for the Dragons and all the other Wales boys feel the same.
“We are focusing on finishing the season strongly, we have talked about looking for that away win and we are targeting both these games. Hopefully we can produce two good performances.
“We have been looking for it for a long time now and want to get the monkey off our back. We are strong enough and have the mindset to go out there and do a job.”
Reflecting on the Grand Slam success, Dee said: “There was a lot of pressure on but that brings the best out of people.
“To experience winning a Grand Slam was amazing and it gives you a lot of confidence, you can see that the likes of Aaron and Leon, who are both young, have come back to the Dragons as senior players with that experience and the squad feeds of that.”
“I have a job to do here and there are no guarantees of going [to Japan],” he added. “You are only as good as your last game and have to perform well to get noticed and get selected.
“That’s what my focus is now, I couldn’t play against the Ospreys and I was gutted about that because I wanted to get back in and get some game time.
“I am now looking to start again over the next few weeks and build my performances.
“It would be nice to go into next season with confidence, because when rugby is a confidence sport. Once you are winning it is hard to lose and sometimes when you are losing it is hard to get that bounce of the ball.
“There have been encouraging signs since Christmas and there are three winnable games to finish the season strongly.”
It’s good to be back in with the boys, there is a good buzz... It’s nice to be back into the familiarity of the Dragons and I’m ready to go in South Africa.
