Faletau is on the bench for tomorrow’s trip to Edinburgh having not featured in the promising opening day win over Ulster at Rodney Parade.
The 22-year-old Wales No. 8 enjoyed a stellar summer with the British & Irish Lions in Australia, regularly producing impressive performances in the provincial fixtures before starring in the series-clinching third Test win over the Wallabies in Sydney.
His decision to sign a new two-year contract during the off-season was music to everyone’s ears at the Dragons and now Coombs is looking to forward to seeing him replicate his Lions form in club colours, starting at Murrayfield on Friday.
“He’s a proven world-class player. Having him play for us is massive. He really gets our game going forward and he’s done that whenever we’ve needed him in the past,” said Coombs, who is out of tomorrow’s game with an injury.
“He was incredible for the Lions. It was so good to see him go and achieve everything he’s worked so hard for.
“His performances in the mid-week games were good enough to get a Test start for the Lions but Warren Gatland was picking the squad for a reason. Toby got in there in the end, though, and he proved his class. It was a big thumbs up for Toby.”
After their win over Ulster, the Dragons travel to Scotland in good spirits. T. Rhys Thomas leads the side in Coombs’ absence while Matthew Pewtner comes onto the wing with Tom Prydie out with an ankle injury.
Pat Leach and Jack Dixon combine at centre with Jason Tovey, whose five penalties downed Ulster, at fly half. Lewis Evans moves to blindside flanker as Fijian international Netani Talei takes on the No. 8 role.
But it’s the return of Faletau that will be a huge boost to everyone at Rodney Parade. Speaking about his fellow Welsh teammate, Coombs added: “There are a lot of big ball carriers around in the game but Toby gives you that something extra.
“He’s got pace and you can’t beat that in a player. He’s got an all-round game and he’s really tough to bring down.
“With the likes of Talei involved as well, it’s a fierce back row. I wouldn’t like to play against that myself so that’s a good start for us.”
For Edinburgh, Nikki Walker and Tim Visser will provide the firepower out wide with the former making his debut for the club.
Edinburgh head coach Alan Solomons said: “It would be fantastic to get the home section of our campaign underway with a win but in order to achieve that, we need a good performance.
“If we get a good performance then everything will flow from it. It’s all about the way we play.
“We know what we want to do, we need to execute our strategy well and we need to play well. If we do that we’ll get the result we deserve.”
