ADAM Hughes says it’s imperative that the rest of Newport Gwent Dragons’ wingers return to full fitness as soon as possible to help the region end the season on a high.

Seven matches into his comeback following five months out recovering from concussion and Hughes is now close to firing on all cylinders once again.

While he is eager to get more minutes under his belt, Hughes believes competition for places is key – and that means all the Rodney Parade speedsters having a clean bill of health.

The Men of Gwent’s wings haven’t had the best of luck with injuries during the current campaign, with Hughes, Hallam Amos and Ashton Hewitt sidelined for long spells at one time or another.

Hewitt has been troubled by a concussion of his own, though he could return tomorrow night when the Dragons host Guinness PRO12 title hopefuls Leinster (kick-off 7.30pm).

Amos underwent surgery last autumn after damaging a shoulder in Wales’ 32-8 thrashing by Australia at the Principality Stadium.

However, Dragons head coach Kingsley Jones said on Tuesday that Amos is just a few weeks away from a return.

Tom Prydie, who missed the second half of last season after rupturing knee ligaments in December 2015, hasn’t escaped unscathed this term.

And South African Pat Howard suffered a blow to the head along with full-back Carl Meyer in the reverse fixture against Leo Cullen’s Leinster last December.

“We take it in turns,” joked Hughes when speaking about the injuries to wingers at Rodney Parade. “We have long-term injury after long-term injury.

“Hopefully Ashton will be coming back in the next few weeks and there’ll be good competition again, because that’s what we need.

"We need people to drive other people on and improve their performances, and that’s how we’re going to improve as a team.”

He added: “We want to climb up that league, we don’t want to finish 10th. We want to improve on last year’s finish.

“We’re unfortunate that we haven’t got Europe this year. It was a huge buzz for us last year and kept us going.

“We’ve got some good home games left and Judgement Day as well. Hopefully we can get some good home wins and nick a few away.”

Hughes wasn’t quite ready to play when the Dragons lost 28-15 to Cullen’s troops in Dublin.

But now that he is back, the 27-year-old has the chance to help his side gain revenge for that reverse.

“We haven’t been at home for a while,” he said. “I’ve played seven games since I’ve been back and only two of those have been at home.

“We’ve got a good home record with a high percentage of wins so we want to keep that going.

“We always tend to do quite well at home against Leinster and Munster.

“We do well against Irish teams at home, but we’ve got to turn those home wins into away wins as well.”

The Dragons have lost five and won just one of their six league meetings with Irish sides this season, the most recent coming last Saturday away to Connacht.