Matt Stevens says Bath have banned all talk of the T-word ahead of their vital trip to Wales to Sunday.

Bath, two points behind Toulouse at the top of their Heineken Cup pool, face the in-form French giants at the Recreation Ground in a potentially mouth-watering finale a week on Sunday.

But first they must beat the dogged Newport Gwent Dragons at Rodney Parade, having squeezed past them with a 13-9 home victory three months ago.

And prop Stevens, who this week retained his place in the England Elite Player Squad, knows how important Sunday's match is if there is to be a pool decider against Toulouse a week later.

"We have tried not to talk about Toulouse at all this week," said Stevens.

"Obviously it's an important game, but the Dragons showed when they came here how devastating they can be in defence and how difficult it is to break their line.

"They have got a seriously good tight five with a huge work-rate, so if you don't bog them down in the set-piece and work them hard in attack and defence they will make a lot of inroads.

"Unfortunately for us, they did surprise us when they came here and it was a big learning curve.

"You should never take a side in the Heineken Cup for granted, not that I am saying we did, but we definitely didn't prepare like we had for Toulouse.

"I think that is what it's going to take – we have got to prepare for the Dragons like we will prepare for Toulouse. But we are not thinking of that final pool game yet."

One theory as to why Bath struggled to overcome the Dragons when the Welsh side visited the Rec in October was that they had exerted so much mental and physical energy during their last-second defeat at Toulouse the previous week. Bath played the better rugby and led 16-15 going into the final seconds of the game at Stadium Municipal, only to concede possession and give away a late penalty which David Skrela landed to make it 18-16.

The defeat still rankles with the Bath players – but they know they will only be able to exact revenge if they take care of business in Gwent on Sunday first.

"I think we've worked on where we went wrong in that game – we've worked hard on how to break their defence down," said Stevens.

"Having said that, they are a good team with a good defence and we will take every point we can get.

"But this week we are fresher than we were when they came here, there are no excuses and we've got a big game to win."

And head coach Steve Meehan has reiterated his belief that Sunday's game is not a warm-up for the following weekend's big match, but a huge game itself.

"As a team, our players want to have the opportunity to play a winner-takes-all match against Toulouse the following week," said Meehan. "We can't do that unless we perform well against the Dragons. So this is not a warm-up – this is the big game.

"We last played them at a time when emotionally we were a little bit down after the defeat in Toulouse – and we could well be accused of not paying the Dragons the respect we should have. That will not happen again."

Coach Lyn Jones has signed an 18-month consultancy deal with the Dragons, with responsibility for contact skills and attack play.

"It is a privilege for me to join on a more permanent basis," said the former Ospreys head coach, who has been there since November.