NEWPORT Gwent Dragons scrum-half Richie Rees is hopeful that his future will be sorted by the end of the month.

The signing of South African scrum-half Sarel Pretorius has raised question marks about the Rodney Parade future of the 31-year-old former Wales international, who is out of contract at the end of the season.

Pretorius is joining after finishing his Super Rugby commitments with the Cheetahs while 20-year-old Luc Jones has another season on his Dragons deal.

But Jonathan Evans has confirmed that he is leaving the Dragons, with Bath yet to confirm that he is heading to the Rec, leaving the 19-year-old Wales Under-20s prospect Owen Davies, who is yet to play a senior game, as the region's only other number 9.

"There are a few decisions to make and hopefully things will be sorted in the next three or four weeks," said Rees, who won the last of his nine caps in 2010.

"We will see what happens and I am not sure yet. I'd like to think my future could still be here but you never know with rugby. You've got to look after yourself first I suppose and there's a decision to be made."

Rees is certainly a popular figure with the Dragons faithful and has been the region's most consistent 9 since arriving from Edinburgh in the summer of 2013.

At times this season he has been marginalised yet alongside fly-half Jason Tovey he helped the Dragons dodge a bullet against London Welsh last Sunday.

The pair came off the bench to guide the region to a 17-13 win when at 13-3 it looked like the Exiles were going to get their first win of the season at the 23rd attempt.

"We tried to pick the tempo up and we can only stake a claim for a start," said Rees, who scored the first try before full-back Tom Prydie's winner.

"We started to put some nice things together and it was a case of holding onto the ball, going through the phases and stressing their big fellas."

And the Dragons will be up against more sizeable units on Sunday when they return to action in the Guinness Pro12 against a Leinster side that are formidable even without their Ireland stars.

"Not many sides can match the quality that they've got," said Rees. "They will be missing a few key players but the strength of the players that they've got to come in is second to none and something that the Welsh sides don't have.

"We need to put in a better performance than we did against London Welsh but it was a similar situation when we went to Glasgow (pushing the title hopefuls all the way and earning a losing bonus point).

"We can only control the controllables and look after our game, which we probably didn't do against London Welsh for the first 60 minutes."