THE Dragons ground out their second win in the European Challenge Cup this season at Rodney Parade tonight as they completed a group stage double over Russian outfit Enisei-STM.

Centre Adam Warren crossed for two of the hosts’ three tries and flanker Aaron Wainwright got the other to take Bernard Jackman’s men to the top of Pool 1.

Most of the pre-match talk concerned reports linking the Dragons with a swoop for mercurial Australian international Quade Cooper.

The weather in Gwent wasn’t exactly what the versatile Cooper is used to Down Under, the biting cold and sporadic snow flurries making hats and gloves a must for the fans.

The hosts made four changes to the side that drew with Ulster a week previously, with fly-half Arwel Robson, wing Pat Howard, loosehead Thomas Davies and lock Rynard Landman coming in.

The half-back pairing of Robson and scrum-half Dan Babos made their European debuts, as did James Sheekey, Ben Roach, Owain Leonard and Robson Blake off the bench in the second period.

And after a fairly decent opening by the visitors, who had the first chance of points when outside-half Yury Kushnarev put a penalty wide, Robson helped break the deadlock.

Having jinked his way through the Enisei defence, he offloaded to Warren on his shoulder and the centre crossed unopposed. Angus O’Brien missed the conversion.

But the Russians, beaten by the Welsh region in the reverse fixture earlier this term, responded well and might have gone over had it not been for a bit of white line fever.

Kushnarev made the initial dart and wing Richard Kingi looked to be set for a go at the whitewash but scrum-half Alexey Shcherban’s pass was poor.

However, the visitors were sniffing a try again a few minutes later.

Blindside Mikheil Gachechiladze leapt like a salmon over a ruck on the Dragons’ line but Romanian referee Vlad Iordescu said the ball had been held up.

Worse followed for Enisei, who would have been at home in the freezing conditions, when the Dragons’ pack forced them to infringe at the resulting scrum five.

There wasn’t much between the teams and 5-0 to the hosts at half-time showed that.

The second half was barely 10 minutes old when try scorer Warren copped a late tackle and made way for Gavin Henson soon after.

Henson made an instant impact with a grubber kick that was gathered by Jared Rosser.

The wing surged downfield and a score seemed to be on the cards only for the speedster to be hauled down with the line in sight.

Dragons skipper Ollie Griffiths hobbled off soon after but the home side were given a lift with a second try of the night.

A well-judged kick down the touchline by O’Brien stayed in play and flanker Wainwright scooped up the ball to dive over. O’Brien’s conversion struck the woodwork.

Jackman then freshened things up by utilising the rest of his bench and Warren, who had come back on for Rosser, made the game safe with around 10 minutes to go.

The centre showed his pace as he hunted down O’Brien’s kick into space and gathered the ball to slide over.

The Dragons couldn’t manage another try for the extra bonus point but they will take a shutout victory to keep the momentum building following the draw with Ulster.

Dragons: A O’Brien; P Howard, A Warren, J Dixon, J Rosser; A Robson, D Babos; T Davies, L Belcher, L Fairbrother, J Davies, R Landman, A Wainwright, O Griffiths (capt), J Benjamin. Reps: G Ellis, L Garrett, S Hobbs, J Sheekey, B Roach, O Leonard, G Henson, R Blake.

Enisei-STM: R Gasin; R Kingi, D Kacharava, S Trishin, F Giliberti; Y Kushnarev, A Shcherban; A Polivalov, S Selskiy, I Zykov, U Saulite (capt), E Elgin, M Gachechiladze, V Orlov, D Krotov. Reps: S Magomendov, V Morozov, V Podrezov, A Rudoy, A Budychenko, K Uzunov, D Simonov, M Gargalic.

Referee: Vlad Iordescu (Romania)

Attendance: 3,417

Argus star man: Dan Babos (Dragons)