NEWPORT Gwent Dragons Cory Hill is bracing himself with another fierce battle with a formidable Bucharest pack at Rodney Parade on Friday evening.

The Dragons emerged from the perishing Ghencea Stadium with a 37-10 victory last weekend to give themselves a terrific chance of qualifying for the quarter-finals of the European Rugby Challenge Cup.

But they didn't have things all their own way against the spirited Wolves, who earned an early 10-0 lead thanks to their well-executed pick-and-drive gameplan and enjoyed the upper hand in the scrum.

They will head to Newport with the same approach and Hill says the Dragons need to cut out the mistakes that enabled the hard-running Romanians pack to build up a head of steam.

"We had done our homework on Bucharest and knew that the battle was mainly going to be up front," said the 22-year-old. "We were expecting a hard task and that was the case in the first 15 minutes.

"We made too many errors but we put a few things right, especially in the second half when we got a couple of driving lineouts going (with hooker Rhys Thomas and flanker James Thomas scoring tries). We've put a lot of work into that part of our game and all you need is one or two good-uns and it starts to click even more.

"The conditions were tough – Brok Harris had never seen snow so getting off the plane was an eye-opener – but we knew we had to dig in and get the job done.

"The win puts us in good stead in the group now. The bonus point was a nice little extra and we have to follow up on Friday at our place."

The Wolves fixture is followed by key clashes with fellow Guinness Pro12 strugglers Zebre (home) and Cardiff Blues (away and home).

"We've got to build from here," said Hill. "We put a good shift in at Glasgow the previous week (going down 19-15 at the title hopefuls), another win this week and we can really look forward to the Christmas period."

Bucharest suffered a blow in the first half at Ghencea Stadium when influential flanker Sean Morrell, their try scorer, was forced off by injury and the once-capped Fijian international won't feature at Rodney Parade.