Pretorius puts some fire into Dragons

SAREL Pretorius returned to the starting line-up to enliven a miserable night at Rodney Parade.

The South African scrum half had been on the bench for the three previous Dragons’ games but the fans’ favourite took his opportunity to impress with a man of the match performance, earning praise from his boss, Kingsley Jones.

Jones said: “Sarel’s game went up a level as he played with a great tempo to drive up the standard of our play.

“It was a tactical selection as we studied Treviso and knew they would leave gaps in and around the ruck area and Sarel was the man to go through them.”

Pretorius helped Dragons recover from a difficult start by sniping over for their first try after Treviso had led through a Tito Tebaldi try.

The Italian scrum half had taken advantage of a poor up and under from Angus O’Brien by gathering the loose ball and run 25 metres to score.

Jones said: “The last thing we wanted was to give them a good start with a kicking error.

“However we reacted well to that setback and stayed in control even when we picked up a yellow card. Our defence was outstanding during that period.”

A penalty and a conversion from O’Brien in response to a penalty from Tommaso Allan had given Dragons a slender 10-8 lead before Pretorius was sin-binned for a deliberate slap-down of an attempted pass.

Treviso had their golden opportunity to put Dragons under pressure but butchered two good chances and the game was gone as O’Brien kicked another penalty before half-time.

After the interval, Dragons took control with Brok Harris and Cory Hill shining up front and good tactical kicking from Carl Meyer and O’Brien keeping Treviso penned back.

O’Brien kicked another penalty and dropped a goal before Lewis Evans finished off a driving line-out for Dragons’ second try.

Jones added: “I’m disappointed with the last 10 minutes as we didn’t go for the jugular but Treviso always pick their best team against us as they believe it’s a game they can win.”