The Dragons hit a half century of points in Friday night’s opening win over Italian minnows Mogliano at Rodney Parade but will face a far tougher test at The Rec.
The prospect of travelling to the West Country doesn’t faze Edwards and co at all, though, and the former scrum-half isn’t expecting the Dragons to sit back and wait to see what Bath throw at them.
“I believe we can score points. We need more ball than them and we’ll see how dangerous we can be,” said Edwards, six weeks after the Dragons beat Bath 22-20 in a summer friendly.
“That’s what turned the game in pre-season. Let’s get as much possession as we can and enforce our game on them.
“The Bath squad on paper and the start they’ve had to the season is nothing to be taken lightly. I know all the coaches there and I’m sure our pre-season game still hurts them, too. We bill pre-season fixtures as friendlies but I’m sure they didn’t walk away thinking that.
“That doesn’t mean anything in terms of Saturday but it has given us a glimpse of each other first hand. When you do normal analysis you’re doing it off a TV screen, so watching the game live will have triggered some thoughts for both teams.
“They’ve worked hard at having a big scrum and a driving lineout and they have got some serious individuals to score tries. Putting down that platform makes them dangerous opposition.”
The Dragons scored seven tries against Mogliano as they kicked off their continental campaign in some style.
The bonus-point was sewn up just past the half hour in Newport and Edwards admits he was happy with the outcome, even if he does recognise that improvements will have to be made before the trip to England.
“It was about getting five points, improving our performance and getting a number of guys more game time. We achieved that so we’re pleased,” added Edwards.
“In terms of getting maximum points out of the game, it was job done. Individual performances pleased us. We put some new guys out there and they stepped up and played for their shirts. That’s what we’re trying to get to – a really competitive squad.
“It’s given us some selection headaches and that’s’ what we needed. We’re in a pretty healthy place as a squad – we haven’t got a lot of long-term injuries so we’ve got a lot of players to pick from. Those are the headaches we want and we need because we’ve got a tough batch of games now, starting with Bath.
“Playing against Mogliano did throw up some questions – we answered some of those with some good bouts of play but in other areas we were pretty disappointed not to score more points. We had a lot more chances than you normally get and we need to convert those when we get to the really tough matches.
“We’ve certainly come a long way but we’ve still got a long way to go. We’ve come on well, won two big games against Ulster and the Scarlets which could have gone either way, so mentally we’ve been in tough battles right through to 80 minutes and we’re going to need that next week.”
