I WON'T be able to play for the rest of the season because of my wrist injury but it has thrown up an interesting opportunity – the chance to do some coaching with Newport RFC.

Craig Warlow, their acting head coach, gave me a call to see if I would be interested in coaching defence and lending a hand to forwards coach Dai Gray.

I made my debut for the Black and Ambers in 2006 and played for the club 30 times and being a local boy it is special to be able to be involved with the team for the rest of the season and getting some experience of coaching at a high level.

I will be trying to bring in some basic defensive principles, not reinventing the wheel, and also will be looking at some of the detail in the process of the set piece work.

There are only five Principality Premiership games and the Swalec Cup left this season so it will only be doing a bit of tweaking here and there, and with a bit of luck it’ll be a strong end to the season for Newport.

The Dragons boys are enjoying some well-earned rest over the next week or so after a tough run of games and they signed off on a high by beating Ulster.

Getting away from the environment for a few days is important physically, and sometimes more mentally.

They showed great spirit against a tough side and after getting over a few bumps and bruises we will be back in ready to prepare for a big end to the season with our European quarter-final against Cardiff Blues looming.