IT'S a fresh competition for us when we welcome Brive to Rodney Parade tonight and it's also a new challenge for me in the back row.

Injuries to Nic Cudd, Ollie Griffiths and James Benjamin mean that I'll be playing with 7 on my back for the first time this season when we kick off our European Rugby Challenge Cup campaign.

I've played openside plenty of times before but recently I've mainly slotted in at blindside or number eight but needs must and, as our forwards coach Ceri Jones said earlier this week, it probably isn't the worst time to have a big back row given the size of the Brive pack.

The mindset has to change slightly when playing 7, there's a slightly different approach to the game and you have to think more about positioning around the field.

Blindside is all about working as hard as possible while at openside you have to be that link in attack and also put in a big shift in defence… 'Cuddy' is probably our best defender at the Dragons, so no pressure there then!

I've always been a bit of a 6.5 and it does mean that we will have more ball carrying options with James Thomas coming into the side alongside me and Ed Jackson.

That's useful against a French side because they have massive players and big power game. We've done our homework on Brive and they are no exception with a strong tight game and some influential Islanders.

We've done pretty well against sides from the Top 14 recently with Rodney Parade wins against Bordeaux-Begles, Stade Francais, Pau and Castres.

That will hopefully serve us well and we can take confidence from our runs to the semi-finals in 2015 and earlier this year; we seem to thrive against fresh opposition and when referees don't have any preconceptions about us.

Our past record gives us belief and so does last week's game at the Scarlets, even though it was upsetting to head back to the changing room in Llanelli after another defeat.

It was our first four-try bonus point in the Guinness Pro12 since the last game of the 2014/15 season and we fought like hell to get back within a score and be in a position to push for the win after conceding our lead on the hour.

We could have folded after seeing out 20-7 lead turn to a 31-20 deficit but dug deep to get back into it.

Sadly we didn't get another score to make it a famous fightback win but I think our efforts in scoring four tries against a good Scarlets side on their own patch shows the progress we are making.

Our only victory of the season came against Zebre when we only scored one try and if anything tried to play too much against opponents who just wanted to spoil.

We have learnt from recent frustrations to show more patience in attack and are heading in the right direction. Hopefully that will continue against Brive so that we can make the long trip to Russia in good spirits next week.