NEWPORT Gwent Dragons lock Luke Charteris earned the man-of-the-match performance in Saturday’s Heineken Cup victory over Glasgow despite being violently sick on the field — now he gets to play against his home team.

For though Charteris is a Welsh international and is from West Wales he has lived in Bath for the past seven years.

And the west country city is the next port of call for the Dragons when they clash with the Guinness Premiership leaders, who yesterday lost with the last kick of the game at French giants Toulouse, at the Recreation Ground on Sunday.

But Paul Turner’s side head over the border in high spirits after four successive victories and their first opening-day Heineken Cup win for five years.

Explaining his sickness, Charteris said: “It was a mixture of the painkillers I had taken,” needing them after being unable to train all last week because of a foot injury.

And about playing against his ‘home’ side, the 6ft 9in lock said: “I’ve lived in Bath for the last seven years so it’s going to be a nice, easy trip for me on Sunday. In those seven years I’ve not seen a live game there, but my girlfriend’s father is a season ticket-holder!

“I was at university there for four years and I just settled there after that with my girlfriend, who is there at the university.

“It’s one game at home I’m aiming to win, we have to look to go there and get something out of it.

“It’s going to be tough because they are top of the Guinness Premiership table and they are a quality outfit, but if we can sneak a win it would be great.”

Charteris is the Dragons’ line-out ‘caller’ and he is benefiting personally from it, winning more ball than at any stage.

Many believe that is precisely what he should be doing, given his height. He took a swipe at the media when asked about it, saying: “It’s because I’m fed up with you boys abusing me in the Press! But I only call to myself if the gap is there.

“We’ve been working hard in the line-out, it’s coming on well and we had four good options against Glasgow, but we identified there was some freedom at the tail.

“We’re on a good roll now. No-one apart from Munster has outclassed us, we showed early glimpses against Glasgow and the Scarlets and knew if we put it together we could be a good side.”

* Fellow lock Hoani MacDonald’s arrival will be delayed even further after he helped his New Zealand province Southland to victory over Bay of Plenty in the quarter-finals of the Air New Zealand Cup on Saturday. It may well be the final EDF pool game against Wasps on November 2 before he is available for the Dragons.