FLY-HALF Jason Tovey will not feature against his future employers tomorrow evening but Newport Gwent Dragons head coach Darren Edwards has not ruled out giving him a last hurrah for the region.

The 22-year-old will move to Cardiff Blues at the end of the season but will not be given a chance to give his new teammates the run around at Rodney Parade tomorrow night.

Lewis Robling, 20, is poised to start at fly-half with Steffan Jones, 21, backing him up from the bench.

Tovey, who did not feature against Munster last time out, is just nine points shy of Ceri Sweeney’s regional points record and took to Twitter to express his frustration at being left out.

Martyn Thomas, who will also be leaving the region at the end of the season, will start at full-back against the Blues.

He tweeted: “Looks like I might be putting that dragons shirt on again then! #unexpected,” to which Tovey responded: “alright for some lol.”

Edwards has stressed that development of his young 10s is his priority but that Tovey could still feature in the RaboDirect Pro12 run-in.

“It’s a tough one at fly-half because we feel we need to have a good look at both Lewis, who played well against Aironi and Munster, and Steffan, who has been in good form for Cross Keys,” said the head coach.

“We need to look to the future but Jason is up for selection and is training well, so he still has a part to play here.

“Martyn is involved against the Blues because his kicking game from full-back will be hugely important.

“There are no hard feelings, we are carrying on professionals and Martyn gets his start on merit. The same goes for Aled Brew on the left wing.”

Meanwhile, skipper Ashley Smith believes the Dragons have to learn from their Munster heartbreak if they are to take the spoils tomorrow.

The Dragons played some lovely rugby but were hit by a late blitz of 15 points in the last 12 minutes as the Irish province secured a 24-14 win.

“We played all the good rugby and got over 10 phases a fair few times but just didn’t finish them off,” said centre Smith.

“Munster didn’t have many opportunities and scored two tries and we suffered the same at Ulster when we limited them to two clear chances and they scored four tries.

“We need to be more clincial because if we combat the Blues’ power then we have the firepower to cause them problems.”

TICKETS UPDATE

A few hundred tickets, mostly on the North Terrace, are still available for tomorrow’s encounter.

The Dragons allowed punters to exchange or refund their tickets from the game that was postponed in November.

Ring the Rodney Parade box office for more information on 01633 674 990.