Huw Jones front and centre to Scotland’s cutting edge

Born in Scotland, educated in England and schooled in rugby in South Africa, Huw Jones’ story is one of an unlikely fall and rise, an international career that auspiciously arrived because he loved playing.

Now one of Scotland’s leading threats, three-try Jones heads the glory list in the Six Nations championship ahead of a glut of players including Mack Hansen, Hugo Keenan and James Lowe, two of the scores coming in Scotland’s game last time out against France.

As paths go the Scotland outside centre, who faces Garry Ringrose tomorrow in Murrayfield, had an adventurous beginning playing for the University of Cape Town and a dreamy end, when he was a surprise late call-up to then Scotland coach Vern Cotter’s squad for the two Tests in Japan in 2016.

Now, at a relatively doughty 29-years-old, Jones’ latest renaissance has threatened to make this his breakout season and it is timely. Two years had passed since his last Scotland cap in Paris against France in 2021 and Scotland’s triumph at Twickenham in February of this year.

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“The past two weeks, the coaches and I have felt he is going to have a breakthrough game because he’s training so well, and today was that game,” said Scottish coach Gregor Townsend after the game in Paris.

“It was really good we were able to get more ball into those wide areas in the second half. Having Huw in those spaces really caused problems for the French defence.”

Far from coming through age grade rugby, Jones was never selected for Scotland at under-18 or under-20 level and when he finished school at England’s famous Millfield, there were no clubs clamouring for his signature.

Instead, the 6ft1in back found himself in an arrangement to play in South Africa. From what began as his gap year at Bishops Preparatory School in Cape Town, shaking weary boarders out of bed, transitioned into playing club rugby for False Bay in 2013.

After the club’s director of rugby, Kevin Musikanth, was appointed as head coach of the Ikey Tigers Varsity Cup side, Jones followed by enrolling at the University of Cape Town for 2014.

On the back of his university performances, Western Province picked him up and in 2015 the Stormers saw enough to include him in their training group prior to that year’s Super Rugby season.

Week in week out, though, Jones was looking at the names on the back of the shirts and wondering whether a bench tan was all he would ever get.

Stormers had Springboks Juan De Jongh and Damian de Allende dominating the playing roster at 12 and 13. Still, they saw something in him and that season Jones was picked in the squad to travel to New Zealand to play the Hurricanes.

“I wasn’t getting on the field. Sometimes I’d get the last play. Sometimes I’d get five minutes,” he told World Rugby last year.

“So, I didn’t get a lot of play. But just being around those players Juan De Jongh and Damian de Allende it was really exciting, something I hadn’t foreseen coming out to South Africa, but just happy to be there.

“We went out to New Zealand and then, during the week, Juan De Jongh got injured. I don’t know how hesitant they were to put me in, but I started the game against Hurricanes and I was up against Ma Nonu and Conrad Smith in the centre, guys I’d watched and idolised, even the year before, thinking how amazing they were.”

Back in Scotland, an analyst with Glasgow Warriors, Gavin Vaughan, had been watching rugby on television and on screen saw the blue and white saltire beside the Jones name, which prompted some inquiries.

“Gav was up late watching university rugby for no reason other than he had run out of Premiership and European games to watch,” said Jones. “He saw my name with the Scotland flag. I was born in Edinburgh and I got offered to go to Glasgow that year.”

Over a blinding two-year period, Jones went from boarding school and playing amateur university rugby to being capped for Scotland by Cotter.

A fullback as well as a centre, his recent 40-yard try against England showed both strength and hunger. Breaking between two players in midfield, Jones made ground and bullocked between two more defenders who were scrambling back, highlighting flimsy England tackling and perfect opportunism from him.

It has taken some time to elbow Lions’ centre Chris Harris out of the starting position. Now, given the chance, nobody can accuse him of hesitating to grab it.

Jones did not get any game time in the 2022 Autumn Nations Series and did not tour Argentina with Scotland in the summer, having played a year at Harlequins after a move from Glasgow to France fell through. Now he is back at Scotstoun under his third Glasgow head coach.

Defensively he has grunt and grit and uses his strength wisely. But he is not all brawn. His potency is using both of those assets with excellent line running, especially off Scotland outhalf Finn Russell, one of the best players in the game to immaculately time a late, late flat pass to a hard-running centre.

Jones has not only woven his way into Russell’s web of playing but has also linked well with inside centre and Glasgow teammate, Sione Tuipulotu. Around Scotstoun, the two have been christened ‘Huwipulotu’.

“Jones has always had that relationship with Russell,” said former Scotland and Lions coach Ian McGeechan.

“There’s a chemistry, confidence and trust in that midfield to read the game and find those lines. Jones finds them late, which suits Finn Russell down to the ground.”

Despite losing to France, Jones immediately talked up his team’s willingness to face Ireland head-on in Edinburgh.

“At home we back ourselves against anyone. We’ve improved a lot but we’ve still not hit our peak,” he said pointing to his reacquaintance with Russell as one of the charges that can ignite Scotland’s backline game.

Jones is talking like he belongs at the heart of the team and so is Townsend. For now, he can bask in the success of the rekindling of his career coinciding with a snarly Scotland team that has begun to play with excitement and verve and are closer to taking benchmark scalps than they have been in a long time.

The young Scot, who took a gap year out because he couldn’t break into any of the underage squads at home, has become one of the scoring threats that Scotland will look towards and Ireland look at with apprehension.