Dragons overpowered Enisei-STM 47-5 at Rodney Parade on Friday night to seal the runners-up place in Pool 1 and a trip to Bristol Bears in April.

“We want to learn from lots of experiences and I’m sure the quarter-finals will be one of the highlights this year,” Ryan told the Dragons’ website.

“I’m just really pleased for the group getting qualification through some challenging games. Today [Friday] was as big as any of them. The group should enjoy being talked about, qualifying and this evening.”

Ryan admitted that the first half had been hard work, with the Welsh region only leading 14-5 at the break.

“I’ve never really experienced a first 40 minutes like that,” he added. “There was no momentum in the first half at all.

“We tried to do some simple things to take the game and make sure we got the bonus point.”

The Dragons boss knew that would be needed to reach the last eight – but even then the result at Worcester could have dashed their hopes.

A bonus-point victory for the Warriors and two losing bonus points for Castres Olympique would have knocked out the Welsh side, but Castres edged home 33-27 to leave Dragons’ fate in their own hands.

“We only learnt about that scenario this week,” Ryan revealed. “I think someone had been on the calculator and worked out what if.

“We couldn’t control that. All we could control was five points and I didn’t hear the Castres score until two or three minutes from the end. It wasn’t relevant until then.

“I did realise at that stage that it was still very poised and it could have come back and bitten us.”

Dragons director of rugby Dean Ryan is looking forward to “one of the highlights of the year”, after guiding the Welsh region into the European Rugby Challenge Cup quarter-finals for the first time since 2015/16.