BROK Harris is confident the Dragons will build up a head of steam thanks to swapping life on the road for a December in Newport.

The Rodney Parade region start a streak of five games on home soil when they entertain Ulster in the Guinness PRO14 on Friday (kick-off 7.35pm).

The Dragons have played 4 of 13 fixtures away from home this season and in October and November have travelled to Cardiff, Newcastle, Moscow, Swansea, Cork, Northampton and Dublin.

Bernard Jackman’s side have triumphed just twice since downing Southern Kings on September 30 – against Enisei-STM in the Challenge Cup and the Scarlets in the Anglo-Welsh Cup in their sole Newport game of the energy-sapping streak – and they head into this weekend on the back of two PRO14 hammerings in Ireland.

They were dismantled 49-6 at Munster at the start of the month and were thrashed 54-10 by Leinster last Friday, shipping a combined tally of 15 tries.

Prop Harris is confident that a return to home soil can provide the boost to morale to challenge another Irish title hopeful.

“We’ve five home games coming up and we are really excited about that after having a lot of them away recently,” said the South African.

“We’re looking forward to Ulster and it wasn’t a good performance when we lost to them in Belfast, so we are aiming to rectify that.

“We pride ourselves on our home form so will give it a really good go and try to get the confidence back up after a couple of really tough away trips.

“We’ve gone well in the home games that we’ve had – we beat the Kings and Connacht in the PRO14 and the Scarlets in the Anglo-Welsh Cup, so that’s something to build on.

“A big aim this season is to build the culture of being strong at Rodney Parade and always putting up a real fight to give our supporters lots to get excited about.

“We are going into this game positive, we have put everything behind us from the away games and are just looking forward. This is a great chance for us to build for the run of home games.”

Harris has proved to be Mr Versatile for the Dragons this season with his ability to slot in either side of the front row.

The South African is a tighthead by trade but moved left to allow burgeoning prop Leon Brown to develop, a rapid rise that has seen the 21-year-old break into the Wales squad this autumn.

Brown will win his fourth cap against South Africa this weekend and his absence has meant a return to tighthead for Harris in November… although he came on for loosehead Sam Hobbs at half-time against Leinster last weekend.

The prop said: “At least the coaches give me a warning about which side I am going to play otherwise I’d be a bit confused!

“In the future I think I will be mainly playing loosehead but I am happy to move back to tighthead, it doesn’t matter to me as long as I can contribute positively and bring some energy.”