KINGSLEY Jones has told his Newport Gwent Dragons players to once again feed off a passionate French crowd and revel in the role of underdogs in their European Rugby Challenge Cup shoot-out in Brive.

The Dragons head into this afternoon’s clash at the Stade Amedee-Domenech (kick-off 2pm) needing to win and deny their hosts a bonus point to claim Pool Three top spot and a place in the quarter-finals.

Jones’ side took the spoils 37-16 when the teams met at Rodney Parade in October but are left playing catch-up after costly away defeats to Enisei-STM and Worcester.

They haven’t triumphed on their travels so far this season in any competition but are buoyed by the away scalps of Stade Francais, Newcastle, Pau and Gloucester in recent Euro campaigns.

“This competition tends to bring the best out of us,” said head coach Jones. “We don’t tend to have away troubles in the Challenge Cup and France seems to be a good hunting ground for us, even the game we lost in Castres (last season) was close.

“We have got happy memories and we see this as an opportunity. We have to feed off the Brive crowd, they are passionate, and our challenge is to silence them.

“You have to enjoy it because it will be a great place to play.”

The Dragons were beaten semi-finalists in 2015 and 2016 and Jones wants another crack at the knockout stages, with a last-eight trip to Aviva Premiership big guns Bath their likely reward if they can upset Brive.

“We’ve been to two semi-finals on the trot and want to go one better,” said the head coach.

“We played a lot better against Montpellier (last year) than against Edinburgh (in 2015). We will back ourselves if we get into a quarter-final.”

The Dragons head into today’s game needing victory but also with the need to triumph in match points by 4-0, 5-0 or 5-1.

Brive earned some breathing space thanks to a late win against Worcester last weekend but Jones has told his side to adopt the patient approach that saw them stretch away from the Frenchmen in the closing stages in Newport.

“Brive will be very focused on doing a professional job and they will be disappointed with the way that they got a win against Worcester,” he said.

“We’ve got to build the game and we will see at what point we need to change the strategy, whether we need to change our attacking tactics.”