BOSS Bernard Jackman says the Dragons will still treat Saturday’s clash with Bordeaux-Begles as a cup final even though their European quarter-final hopes are all but gone.

The Rodney Parade region finish Pool One of the Challenge Cup with a home meeting with the French side, who triumphed 36-28 when the sides met at the Stade Chaban-Delmas last Saturday.

Tries by flanker James Benjamin and Sarel Pretorius gave the Dragons hope of a famous win when they led 23-15 with half an hour left but Bordeaux’s power told, meaning full-back Carl Meyer’s last-minute try was just a consolation.

Even if Jackman’s side thrash their guests in the return fixture it’s unlikely that it will be enough to make the last eight as one of the three best runners-up by the head coach says they won’t lack motivation.

“Bordeaux have a chance of qualifying and are going to go after it. I’ve spoken to the players about it being a cup final without any big reward except a win, but that’s enough because we want that win and are craving it,” said the Irishman.

“We are going to treat it as though if we win we qualify, that’s how important it is to get a performance for our fans to show that we are on the right track.”

The injury-hit Dragons suffered a fifth defeat on the spin but the performance contrasted starkly with that from the previous weekend when hammered 47-13 at the Scarlets.

“I’m disappointed but proud,” said Jackman. “Disappointed we didn’t get the win because it was achievable, when we look back over the 80 minutes there were moments that we could’ve executed better that would have won the game for us.

“But having said that with situation we are in with injuries and how poor the performance was against the Scarlets, the players responded really well with a big shift.

“We changed our defensive system a little bit and got a lot more line speed, we were aggressive, our lineout was very good and our scrum was decent.

“I’m proud of the effort and the players showed really good character.

“We knew that the performance was going to be better because of the way that they trained and responded to the criticism of the review on Monday. That led to the performance and now we’ve got to get the win next weekend with the same players.”

Back row forward Harri Keddie and full-back Zane Kirchner are both very close to returns from shoulder injury but cannot feature this weekend because they are not registered for Europe.

Flanker Ollie Griffiths and centre Tyler Morgan (both ankle) should be back for the return of the Guinness PRO14 on February 9 against Glasgow.