ATTACK Newcastle and take the set pieces away from them in Sunday's Heineken Cup decider -- that is the advice to Newport Gwent Dragons from a true rugby man of Gwent.

Kingsley Jones, the former Ebbw Vale and Wales captain, is now head coach of leading Zurich Premiership club Sale who have played Newcastle twice this season, winning the first game and losing by a point a fortnight ago.

"The Dragons will never have a better chance to beat Newcastle because they are struggling with so many injuries, it's a really good opportunity for them," he said.

"Newcastle are a side more than capable of scoring tries and they attack well from the scrum, but if the Dragons target their scrum and take their threat away they'll be in business.

"I would emphasise to the Dragons to take Newcastle on. Newcastle will always score tries, but they can attack them and take away their set piece, especially now Marius Hurter has gone back to South Africa.

"We were leading 29-20 at Newcastle less than two weeks ago and we were playing well, they hadn't come into our half when Jonny Wilkinson kicked a penalty, then four minutes into injury time they scored under the posts and Jonny converted."

Jones has enjoyed a meteoric rise in his coaching career just 18 months after spending a season back at Pontypridd at the end of a playing career which also took in Cross Keys, Ebbw Vale, Gloucester and Worcester.

He spent a season in charge at English National Division Two side Doncaster and was then snapped up by Sale where he is chief coach alongside former Gloucester colleague Philippe Saint-Andre, their director of rugby.

He is now coaching players of the calibre of England captain Jason Robinson, Mark Cueto, Charlie Hodgson, Trevor Woodman and Chris Jones. And Sale are in the quarter-finals of both the European Challenge and Powergen Cup competitions apart from lying third in the Premiership.

He puts his success down to getting out of Wales and taking the post at unknown Doncaster who he guided to the brink of promotion at the first attempt.

"It's great being here, they are good guys and intelligent people, they grasp things quickly. It's also about man management, there aren't that many people coaching at this level who were playing two years ago so I understand players' problems," he said.

"But I needed to get out of Wales. Going to Doncaster did me the world of good and the experience I gained was invaluable.

"I ran the whole thing there from negotiating contracts to all the mundane bits. It's easier at Sale than it was at Doncaster because there I had to try to organise training sessions for maybe 20 players, then find only 10 turned up, doing the coaching and working with a different level of player.

"The opportunity at Sale came along quicker than I thought, but I had to take the chance or it might never have come again.

"I'm privileged to have the opportunity to work at this level so early in my coaching career," added Jones, the former flanker who still plays the occasional game for Stockport where he is based - at outside half.

He could be seen as the ideal candidate to take over at the helm for the Dragons one day, but he rules that out, at least in the short term, and does not appear impressed by the Welsh set-up.

"If you stay in Wales and fiddle about you'll get nowhere," he said.