Dragons' fire doused

Perpignan overpowered the Dragons in a comfortable 25-0 win at Rodney Parade that secures the French side a place in the Heineken Cup quarter-finals.

In appalling conditions, the visitors dominated possession and territory but came up just short of claiming the four tries they needed to have a chance of topping the group, the third try arriving deep in injury time.

As it is, London Irish's win in Treviso was enough for the Premiership side to claim top spot in Pool One and a home semi-final.

The Dragons played some entertaining handling rugby at times but lacked the power up front to make this into a genuine contest.

Prominent

Former Newport favourite Percy Montgomery surprisingly missed an early shot at goal after Colin Charvis was caught offside, but the early exchanges were dominated by Perpignan with Henry Tuilagi particularly prominent with ball in hand.

World Cup winner Montgomery was surprisingly error-prone on his return to Rodney Parade, but he slotted a penalty on 10 minutes to put his side ahead.

Sustained pressure finally paid off for the Frenchmen on the half hour mark as a series of pick and drives from the forwards sucked in the Dragons defence, the ball was shipped out wide and Montgomery's clever flick pass put Jean-Philippe Grandclaude in.

Montgomery kicked the conversion and the lead was 10-0.

But the Dragons finished the half on a high and a clean break from the excellent Ceri Sweeney almost resulted in a try, only for the fly-half to be wrapped up in the tackle and fail to offload.

The Dragons also started the second half strongly but could not force a breakthrough and Montgomery's boot stretched the lead on 46 minutes.

To be fair to the hosts they continued to persevere with attacking intent only to crash again and again on a wave of Perpignan tacklers.

Error

They finally broke through after another neat handling move but Phil Dolman knocked on under pressure as he went over the try-line.

Dragons' problems up front were demonstrated dramatically on 72 minutes when they were pushed off their own ball at a scrum, but it was an error in the backs which gifted Perpignan their second try.

Dragons were still throwing the ball around and they paid for their ambition when Joe Bearman dropped the ball in midfield and David Marty scooped it up and sprinted 60 metres to score.

By the closing stages Dragons were tiring visibly and the third try arrived off the back of another rock-solid Perpignan scrum, the ball rapidly shipped out wide for Adrien Plante to score in the corner.

Montgomery kicked the goal to stretch the lead to 25-0, although that was not really a fair reflection of a brave and enterprising effort from the Dragons.