HEAD coach Kingsley Jones is confident that a win against Treviso tomorrow afternoon will spark Newport Gwent Dragons' Guinness Pro12 campaign into life.

The region has endured a sticky start to the season, having to settle for losing bonus points against Connacht and the Ospreys before an injury-hit side was hammered 33-13 by Glasgow.

But they are boosted by full-back Lee Byrne, centre Ashley Smith and fly-half Jason Tovey returning for tomorrow's crunch game against a Treviso side that are yet to register a point.

And Jones believes that the Dragons will start to climb the table with away games against the Scarlets and Edinburgh to come before the break for European action.

"We have to draw a line under the Connacht, Ospreys and Glasgow games and look at the next block," said the head coach.

"With respect to the teams that we are going to come up against, the fixtures aren't as tough as the ones that we have played and I believe that if we get the right players on the field we will do well.

"There have been a few grumpy faces around, we really need to win against Treviso and the players want to put things right.

"But it would be a huge failure to disrespect or underestimate Treviso and there is no chance of us doing that.

"They can certainly play, (Italy centre Michele) Campagnaro is a really dangerous individual and they have threats, so we will need to perform well to beat them."

The Dragons were forced to fling novice backs Angus O'Brien, Dorian Jones and Barney Nightingale in at the deep end against the in-form Warriors because of an injury crisis.

The return of Smith, Tovey and Byrne enables fly-half O'Brien to return to the bench while Jones and Nightingale will continue their development with Cross Keys and Newport respectively in the Premiership this afternoon.

"Our young players have potential but we need the likes of Ashley and Pat Leach alongside them," said Jones.

"If you have five guys of a certain age they will make two or three mistakes each, so having to put them all in together was tough. They did a lot of good things but Glasgow ruthlessly punished their mistakes.

"In an ideal world you'd build them up by giving them 20 minutes here and there before calling on them for an LV= game."

- More Dragons v Treviso news on page 43