DECLAN Kidney returns to Rodney Parade tonight after his brief spell as coach of Newport Gwent Dragons in May.

Kidney will be back but in charge of the high flying Leinster team, second in the Celtic League table and parading most of their Irish stars, including Brian O'Driscoll, for the first time this season.

He took over from Mike Ruddock as Dragons coach, but lasted less than a month in the job because Leinster came in for him once they had ended the contract of their coach Gary Ella and the Dragons' benefector Tony Brown, in particular, agreed to release him for family reasons.

"It was purely family reasons. Tony epitomises what sport is all about, he was very generous in allowing me to be closer to my family.

"It had nothing to do with the job, it was purely to be closer to home," said Kidney before leaving for Newport.

"I was lucky to work with the people I met like Jim McCreedy and Andy Marinos, and the senior players were smashing people as well. Obviously I had a connection and I was lucky to work with them. I'm looking forward to meeting up with them all again, this is the tough part but as I say it was all down to family reasons."

Kidney disagrees that the presence of some leading Ireland players will necessarily make them that much more formidable against the Dragons.

And he implies that their early season results (they haven't lost in four league games) were on the fortunate side.

"It is a case of five or six players coming back, but that can have its own difficulties," he said. "They're only human and they're playing against a team which has had a few matches together, so the Dragons will be more cohesive.

"We've had a few extraordinary results and put down a marker to the other players coming in.

"We defended against Munster, then got a breakaway try and we hung on against Ulster in the second half."

Kidney is well aware of the presence of former Australia rugby league coach Chris Anderson as his successor with the Dragons.

"I'm sure Leigh Jones is helping him with the forwards," he said. "Leinster had some very good games against Newport, we're playing at a great venue and it could be a really good game."