NEWPORT Gwent Dragons will be looking to their great rivals Cardiff Blues to do them one big favour on Saturday night.

For if the Blues beat the Scarlets in their Magners League Welsh derby at Parc y Scarlets the Dragons would need only a losing bonus point against Edinburgh at Rodney Parade on Sunday to be guaranteed a Heineken Cup place next season.

The worst they could then finish would be third among the four Welsh teams – and it could be a whole lot better.

The Ospreys, who must be deflated after their third successive Heineken quarter-final defeat, are at Ravenhill tonight to face Ulster and then return to Ireland on Friday to face champions-elect Leinster.

The Dragons clearly need as many of their injured players back as possible, for though they have made great strides on and off the field they do suffer from a lack of real depth in some positions.

While they would ideally wish to reach their goals through their own efforts, the Blues have suddenly hit a rich vein of form, winning their last three games, two of them in some style away against Ulster in the league and Newcastle in the Amlin Challenge Cup to reach their second European semi-final in a row.

The Scarlets, on the other hand, are in the mire after losing four on the bounce and six of their last seven matches, hardly the sort of form to take in against the Blues, who need to escape from the threat of missing out on the Heineken themselves.

The semi-finals of the main competition will predictably be fought out between two Irish and two French teams which follows the pattern set by their national sides in the Six Nations.

The English clubs feel too threatened by just trying to stay in the Guinness Premiership that they can’t take their eye off that particular ball while the Ospreys, who have the biggest budget and the greatest depth in Wales, are best at one thing only – whining.