Scotland centre Huw Jones to join Bayonne

Scotland centre Huw Jones will leave Glasgow for Top 14 side Bayonne at the end of the season. The 27-year-old’s Warriors contract expires in the summer, and he has agreed a deal with the French club.

Glasgow had been keen to retain Jones, who has been deployed at full-back for much of the campaign, but he has long wanted to play in France.

In July, he told The XV: “I’d really love to experience the Top 14, I’ve always wanted to play there. I have a lot of work this season to get my value back up to where it was a season ago. Top 14 would be first prize if I wanted to leave.”

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Jones initially struggled to acquit himself as brilliantly for Glasgow as he did in the early throes of his Scotland career when he moved to Scotstoun from the Stormers in 2017. He felt that team-mates and coaches falsely thought him disinterested, and struggled to build a relationship with former head coach Dave Rennie.

Two years ago, he came close to leaving for Leicester Tigers at the end of his previous contract. In December 2019, he tried to engineer a loan move back to Cape Town which Warriors would not sanction.

However, Jones has been far happier and more at ease under Danny Wilson, returning to the Scotland squad in the autumn to win his 26th cap off the bench in the Nations Cup play-off defeat by Ireland, and featuring in the opening rounds of the Six Nations.

Bayonne sit 13th in the Top 14 with six wins from their 16 matches. The club were formerly captained by ex-Scotland and Glasgow number eight Johnnie Beattie, who retired after helping them to promotion in 2019.

Glasgow recently secured the signings of former New Zealand age-grade back-three players Cole Forbes and Josh McKay, and handed academy graduate Ollie Smith a new deal.