Huw Jones' Weird Route To The Scotland Midfield
Young centre Huw Jones was a standout performer in Scotland’s agonisingly narrow loss to Australia at the weekend. His route to the Scotland team has been unique, to say the least, writes Lee Calvert.
For a large chunk of recent history it has been no picnic watching Scotland’s midfield. Unless, of course, you are referring to one of those picnics where it drizzles constantly, everyone is miserable and your child gets bitten by a horse; in that case watching Scotland’s midfield has been exactly like a picnic.
It’s not so long ago that Scotland were in such a midfield state that they went looking around the world to find John Leslie, then a revolving cast including the likes of Nick De Luca and Graeme Morrison. Sean Lamont played at twelve far too many times to be considered polite.
Sometime between 2012 and 2014 a plethora of decent centres suddenly appeared as if produced by some secret government lab. Mark Bennett, Alex Dunbar, Matt Scott, Duncan Taylor and backups like Peter Horne freshened the air significantly in this area of the field for the boys in blue and the future looked pretty bright.
That was before Huw Jones came along on Saturday vs The Wallabies, scored two tries while carrying for 61 metres and generally put in a magnificent shift. Now things are looking positively blinding.
Huw Jones is a bundle of contradictions. A Scotsman with a name more Welsh-sounding than Daffodil McLeekface, went to school in England then ended up playing in South Africa for the Stormers. As a result, people were genuinely flummoxed when he was called up by Vern Cotter for the tour of Japan this summer, many understandably assuming that he had a distant Scottish relative and was on the project player track.
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How did Jones end up in Super Rugby? After attending the legendary Millfield School, where he was considered by England as being too small to play centre in their school’s representative sides, he went to South Africa for a gap year of work. Deciding to enrol at the University of Cape Town he caught the eye of Western Province / Stormers, who moved him up through their grades until he found himself in the same midfield as Damien De Allende. It is ironic that England thought his stature was an issue but South Africa, that conveyor belt of human battering rams, could see past that to the talent.
Jones came onto Scotland’s radar when an eagle-eyed analyst at Glasgow Warriors, Gavin Vaughan, noticed the Saltire flag next to his name on the University of Cape Town squad list on Wikipedia in 2014. Vaughan discovered Jones was born in Edinburgh and lived there for two years before departing for school in England, and invited him to Glasgow to meet with Gregor Townsend. Jones decided to stay at Uni overseas.
As recently as April this year Jones, was still unsure about pledging his allegiance to Scotland. “It’s definitely an option,” he said at the time, “I am not ruling it out.”
But when the call finally came from Big Vern it was clearly too much to turn down. “It wasn’t too difficult a decision,” he finally admitted. “It’s quite hard to say no to international rugby and I could never just wait around and hope for a call from someone else. And, obviously, I am Scottish.”
This weekend, England, with all of their resources, had a Fijian and an Australian on the bench and a Kiwi as their captain. If a Union the size of England still trawls for talent it is understandable that the likes of Scotland will do the same.
But in this age of project players and residency arguments, despite his complicated path to the top, Huw Jones is Scottish. That is something it seems their fans will be increasingly thankful for.
Comments on RugbyPass
An on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
25 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
25 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
25 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
25 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
11 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to comments