THERE have been quite a few battered and bruised bodies at our training base in Ystrad Mynach after a tough few weeks of big Derby and European clashes, and it doesn't get much easier going into tomorrow's final game of the season against Zebre in the Guinness Pro12.

After a hectic schedule in which we played Gloucester and Montpellier in the Challenge Cup and league fixtures Cardiff Blues and the Scarlets, the management have taken the opportunity to tinker with the side.

Kingsley has made some changes up front, I've been struggling with a few niggles while the likes of Nic Cudd, Taulupe Faletau and Brok Harris will rest up after a few 80-minute spells themselves.

One of the boys coming in is our promising back row forward Harri Keddie, who was superb for Wales Under-20s in the Six Nations.

It's a great chance for him to experience regional rugby and I know from personal experience how useful it is to have a little taste of things when coming through.

I made plenty of appearances of the bench nine years ago and that teed me up to be in a position to push for a starting place in 2008/9.

It will be the same for Harri this weekend. He showed his quality against players his age in the Six Nations and this will give him a valuable experience of Dragons rugby before he plays in the World Rugby U20 Championship next month.

The likes of Jack Dixon and Hallam Amos have shown that there are advantages to blooding players young and we are losing Toby next season so need strength in depth in that position. Hopefully Harri will go well.

There may be a few changes to the XV but that doesn't mean there is any difference to our approach; a flight has been chartered and we are going to Italy with a professional attitude.

Zebre have won as many games as us and we want to end our losing streak to finish a tough league season on a high.

Unfortunately they still have a large carrot dangling in front of them because if they better the result of Treviso, who travel to Leinster, then they will qualify for next season's Champions Cup.

Zebre are always tough on their patch and we won our first away game there, then drew the following year and suffered a defeat last season.

They may have lost heavily at Glasgow last week but will be different on home soil – they have already beaten Edinburgh and Cardiff Blues – while with the likes of Quintin Geldenhuys and Marco Bortolami in the pack they will take it to us up front.

We have to go over there with an positive mindset and we cannot afford a repeat of last weekend at Principality Stadium when we paid the price for a slow start against the Scarlets.

It was a slightly strange experience being second game on at Judgement Day – I looked around at one stage and the ground was half-empty.

I think it was a good day for most judging by the state of some supporters when we left the ground at around 7pm…

On the field we were our own worst enemy. We talked about the dangers of giving them a headstart but still allowed them to get their tails up.

The Scarlets are a team that do the basics well and Byron Hayward has them very well drilled in defence while they scored tries from our errors, showing why they are pushing for the play-offs this weekend while we are at the bottom.

We showed that when we pressure sides into mistakes we can score points with Carl Meyer attacking superbly from a loose clearance kick in the second half before Adam Hughes finished powerfully down the right.

That being said, I think we once again paid the price for our perception in the league as opposed to Europe.

The Scarlets seemed to 'get away' with things at the breakdown with Jamie Davies and John Barclay taking it right to the edge while we were unlucky not to get more rewards form mauls that were stopped illegally.

Hopefully we can get on the right side of the referee tomorrow and sign off with a win.

Thanks to the supporters who came to the Judgement Day event at Shooters Bar in the Bierkeller for mine and Ashley Smith's beneficiary year and also to the Ospreys' Dan Evans, Cardiff Blues' Josh Turnbull, the Scarlets' Ken Owens and Dragon Hallam Amos for taking part in a Q&A.

It was a good night and importantly helped raised £330 for St David's Hospice. Details of more events will be advertised on social media and our website www.dragonsbeneficiary2016.co.uk