\n<\/p>\n
The three-times capped Argentina international has played in 41 of 62 possible games for the Newport-based region and has made Wales home after misfortune in England.<\/p>\n
Martinez was signed by Wasps in 2021 but was out of a job when they went into administration. So he signed for London Irish, only for the Exiles to suffer the same fate before he had played a game.<\/p>\n
“Moving to the Dragons has been good, there have been some tough moments but I love what we are trying to build and develop here. I like the challenge of becoming a better team and a winning team,” he said.<\/p>\n
Martinez competes for starts with Wales internationals Wyn Jones and fit-again Rhodri Jones plus the promising pair of Jordan Morris and Dylan Kelleher-Griffiths.<\/p>\n
“Internal competition is what is making us better,” added the Argentine. <\/p>\n
“Going up against them is class and it’s great to see the young guys step up and show what they can do.”<\/p>\n
Rhys Carre’s try-scoring exploits with Wales in the Six Nations might have changed expectations for loose-head props but Martinez knows where he must thrive.<\/p>\n
“For a prop everything starts at the scrum,” said the front-rower, who linked up with the Pumas for a training camp last autumn and played for an Argentina XV against Romania last summer.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t matter if you carry the ball and make 30 tackles a game if you can’t scrum.<\/p>\n
“That is where you make your money and scrums, defence and the breakdown is where I get my confidence. Do that well and attack will come.”<\/p>\n
After Dragons’ scrum went strongly against Stade Francais, Martinez will hope for more of the same in Parma on Saturday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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The three-times capped Argentina international has played in 41 of 62 possible games for the Newport-based region and has made Wales home after misfortune in England. Martinez was signed by Wasps in 2021 but was out of a job when they went into administration. So he signed for London Irish, only for the Exiles to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}