WHETHER at school in England or university in Cape Town, Huw Jones has always had a Saltire with him to express his support for Scotland. Perhaps it has worked as a good-luck charm, because his attachment to the Saltire - or, more accurately, its attachment to him - has seen him called up by head coach Vern Cotter for the national squad’s two-Test tour to Japan.
If you knew nothing about Jones bar his name, you would expect him to have Welsh origins. If you researched his career, you would learn that he has played all his professional rugby to date for the Stormers in South Africa. And if, for whatever reason, you took a cursory look into his family background, you would learn that his parents are both English.
But a couple of years ago, Gavin Vaughan, the Glasgow Warriors analyst, took more than a cursory look when he was watching a broadcast of a match in which Jones was playing for the University of Cape Town. Having been impressed by the young centre, Vaughan looked up the Wikipedia page for the university team - and noticed a Saltire icon next to Jones’s name.
It was there because Jones, now 22, was born in Edinburgh. And Vaughan’s discovery was the catalyst for a sequence of events that has taken Jones to the brink of a first cap, and could in time see his career develop in the land of his birth.
“Gavin Vaughan watches a lot of rugby,” Jones explained yesterday. “He watched some Varsity Cup games and he checked the UCT Wikipedia page and I was listed as Scottish on that. So he got in contact with me on the back of that.
“I’ve always supported Scotland when watching the Six Nations growing up, and had a flag hanging above my bed since I was 11 or so. I wasn’t expecting to get the call at all, but when I did it didn’t take long to make the decision.”
As well as being eligible for England through his parents, Jones could have qualified for South Africa on residency, having been based there for the past four years. Although modest enough to suggest he would not come into contention for a place in the Springboks squad, he insisted it was an offer he would have found easy to turn down in any case.
“I don’t think they’d ever consider me, but I wouldn’t ever consider it an option,” he said. “I would never support the Springboks, let alone want to play for them! They know that: I’ve told them.”
Nonetheless, he is thankful to South Africa for kickstarting his career, and explained that he has already turned down one tentative offer to move to Glasgow. He accepted that Scotland assistant coach Jason O’Halloran might be right to suggest, as he did earlier this week, that a move to this country would be good for his career, but he also insisted that, with more than a year left on his contract with the Stormers, he is in no hurry to move on.
“I visited Glasgow at the end of 2014. I decided against [joining] - I’ve had contacts with them and chatted to them a bit, but I wanted to stay at the Stormers. I’m under contract until October next year. I don’t have a clause to get a release, so if I was to come away it would have to be some very good negotiating. But I haven’t thought about that.
“I can see his [O’Halloran’s] point of view that it would help, but at the moment I’ve only just got involved and hoping to get my first cap. I’d obviously consider it, but there’s no telling whether I’d go for it. It would depend on which club and the circumstances and all the rest of it.”
The only downside to the story - hopefully a small and temporary one - is the foot strain that has so far prevented Jones from taking a full part in training along with the rest of the squad. As the party leaves for Japan tomorrow, and the first Test is only a week after that, he may not be fit enough to come into Vern Cotter’s thinking for that match. Even so, he is confident that he can get over the injury in time to come into the reckoning for the second Test a week further on.
“At the moment I’m unavailable for selection, but it’s up to the doctors and the physio. We have one more session tomorrow and then we fly, and see how we go next week. If I don’t make the first Test, second Test is the target.”
SCOTTISH businessman Brian Kennedy has sold Sale Sharks, the English Premiership club, after 16 years in charge. Kennedy, whose other sporting interests included a term on Scottish Rugby’s board of directors, has sold the club to CorpAcq, a Manchester-based company led by Simon Orange, the brother of the former Take That member Jason Orange.
“The last 16 years at the helm of this great club has been a great privilege,” Kennedy said yesterday. “We have had many wonderful moments, particularly winning two European trophies and the Premiership championship for the first time in the club’s history.”
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