FESTIVE derby days, occasions that don’t need motivational ploys on the training paddock or Churchillian speeches in the changing room.

They are great fixtures with packed stands and plenty watching on the box back home. It’s an opportunity for the four regions to showcase their product – sorry, a ghastly word – and there is much more than just bragging rights up for grabs for Newport Gwent Dragons.

This will be a defining week on the field and I’d suggest that five points is the minimum that they can afford to take from an away clash with Cardiff Blues on Boxing Day and home encounter with the Ospreys on New Year’s Day.

They have the chance to keep the Blues within touching distance in the Guinness Pro12 and to keep their fine Rodney Parade streak going. If they can down the men from Swansea then it will be six on the spin with Treviso and Enisei next up in Newport.

Get things wrong and we will be faced on January 2 by a battle with Edinburgh and the Italians for ninth spot; get things right and it will be a tussle with Cardiff Blues and champions Connacht as well as the Scots.

We all know how the Dragons are perceived so it’s vital that they show what they are all about with more eyes focussed on their games. If they don’t then those that waste no time when given a chance to stick the boot in will be ready to swing their size 9s.

Collectively the derbies are crucially and individually opportunity knocks for those keen to catch the eye of Rob Howley and Robin McBryde in the stands.

There are inevitably some snorts when Dragons players are mentioned as Wales hopefuls but Cory Hill’s autumn exploits should give both hope and inspiration.

He will need to shine against his peers to keep a spot for the Six Nations while the likes of Tyler Morgan, Ollie Griffiths, Elliot Dee, Ashton Hewitt, Sam Hobbs could do with impressing, if not to earn a spot in European Test tussles then at least with the summer in mind.

The Dragons were whitewashed in six fixtures against their Welsh rivals last season and haven’t won a derby league game since Boxing Day, 2014 in Cardiff. That streak can’t go on.

South Wales Argus:

THEY are two tournaments that will never get the same column inches or screen time as the Champions Cup but the European Challenge Cup and British & Irish Cup are ticking along very nicely.

Newport Gwent Dragons have always treated the second tier Euro competition properly and have enjoyed jaunts to the knockout stages in the past two seasons.

Sadly, they could well miss out on a hat-trick courtesy of the welcome development of others joining them in having a proper crack and the not-so-welcome shockers in Worcester and Krasnodar.

The Dragons have their fate in their own hands sitting on nine points in Pool Three with a home clash to come against Enisei and an away trip to Brive.

Alas, the Frenchmen are keen to mark their 1997 European triumph in style and lead the way on 14 points so will probably head into that finale just needing to avoid a thumping to take top spot.

That leaves you looking at the other four groups in the hope that a ‘mere’ four points at the Stade Amedee Domenech would earn one of the three best runners-up berths in the quarters.

Unfortunately it looks like the failure to grab a four-try bonus against the Warriors at Rodney Parade last weekend could be costly – Harlequins/Edinburgh, Cardiff Blues/Bath, La Rochelle/Gloucester will take some catching.

That has to be taken as a welcome state of play for a frequently maligned tournament as there are very few teams treating the Challenge Cup like an invite to a work Christmas dinner where the dress code is wacky festive jumpers with Nigel Farage making a guest speech.

We go into January with 13 of the teams having a chance of making the last eight while the tournament has been enriched by the presence of Enisei, who the Dragons and Worcester will testify pack a punch on Russian soil.

Relegation from the Aviva Premiership and Top 14 means that some will always take a pragmatic approach to Europe but it’s not just the Ospreys, Cardiff Blues and the Dragons that want to have a proper crack at making it to Murrayfield on Friday, May 12.

When it comes to the BIC, there has been some quibbling about crowd numbers at games featuring Welsh sides. That slightly misses the point of the tournament.

The competition is now used by the four regions to give players with aspirations of becoming professional players the chance to test themselves at a higher level that the Principality Premiership.

When it comes to the Dragons we have seen the likes of Leon Brown, Harri Keddie, Arwel Robson, Barney Nightingale, Connor Edwards, Jared Rosser, Will Talbot-Davies, Ellis Shipp, Max Williams, Owain Leonard test themselves against hefty English sides.

It must be galling for the critics that long for the days of club sides playing in the tournament that players of great promise have shown steel to get something from every game, scoring four tries at Bedford, losing at the death against Ealing, pipped at Yorkshire Carnegie and then returning the favour last Saturday in Ystrad Mynach for a first win.

I still remember fondly covering the Newport side led by Andrew Coombs that produced some stunning performances in the first days of the tournament and Cross Keys’ journey to the final of the competition.

However, I also remember the hotchpotch Keys side featuring players from other clubs while regulars were in the stands after they had won the pre-season BIC playoffs and I recall 2012/13 and the Newcastle nightmare for Newport (93-0).

I have some sympathy for those club fans that miss the days of going up against but they must also remember the help that they had from regional players that enabled them to compete.

There will be those with gripes about how the British and Irish Cup has changed but I know that those in charge of bringing through the next crop of professionals are delighted with how it is going.

The Dragons youngsters named above are all 20 and under and have aspirations of being full-timers in years to come. That’s not always been the case in the tournament.