REPORTS in South Africa have linked out-of-favour Glasgow Warriors and Scotland centre Huw Jones with a move back to Cape Town, where he initially made a name for himself as a top flight player, ahead of the Stormers’ 2020 Vodacom Super Rugby season which kicks off at the start of February.
Jones is contracted with Warriors until the summer of 2021, but has struggled at club level to replicate the form of his first 18 months in the Scotland team, leading to his exclusion from the World Cup squad in September. He has since managed just three starts and three appearances off the bench for Warriors this season, despite fellow midfielders Sam Johnson and Peter Horne being away for much of that time on international duty, and has not been in the match-day squad for either of the team’s two European Champions Cup outings so far.
The ‘SA Rugby Mag’ website has reported that –
According to Netwerk24, Jones would now like to leave the Warriors after falling out with coach Dave Rennie and move to the English Premiership. While he arranges a move a way, he would like to return to the Stormers and play Super Rugby next year.
The Stormers do have a shortage of centres, something coach John Dobson has admitted could be a problem area going into next season. Springbok Damian de Allende will be playing in Japan, while JJ Engelbrecht, EW Viljoen and Dan Kriel have also sealed moves away.
That leaves Ruhan Nel and Dan du Plessis, who is recovering from a long-term injury, as the two senior centres, with Rickus Pretorius, Michal Haznar and Matt Moore as backup.
However, there are questions over whether the Stormers could afford to pay Jones’ salary, given that they have retained most of their Springboks.
Of course, it was confirmed earlier this week that Rennie will leave Warriors at the end of this season, so Jones can now look forward to the final year of his current Warriors contract playing under a different head coach in Danny Wilson.
However, if he has decided that there is no way back at Glasgow regardless of who is in charge of the team, a move to the Stormers would give Jones some game-time during the second half of this European season to prove himself to any potential suitors from England or France ahead of the start of the 2020-21 campaign.
This assumes that Jones has given up on being involved in Scotland’s 2020 Six Nations campaign.
I have said elsewhere, there is something wrong with our coaching set up when class acts like Dunbar, Bennett, Jones and Scott lose form, fitness and favour. We are far too small a nation to afford this. Someone like Sir Alex Ferguson would you think get the best out of such talent, if it were round ball, our incumbent coached seem unable to.
Couple this to Racing getting MoM performances out of Russell, and none of the five of them excelling in WC19 (unthinkable to have predicted this a couple of years ago), and we definitely seem to have a problem getting the best out of our players.
The sooner Huw Jones is out of Glasgow and playing regular, and enjoying regular, rugby again then better it will be for everybody. He’s a cracking player.
I really want Huw Jones back in form . He’s scored so many tries in dark blue , 4 v England and I don’t know of any other player with that record. A great finisher I just cannot understand going from hero to unwanted in such a short time .
Really disappointing if true. I hope Jones doesn’t leave and sticks out his contract and whatever issues there may be can be resolved. If he isn’t involved in the 2020 6N squad or tests that would be a real shame for Scottish rugby. On paper Hutchinson and Jones 12/13 pairing has so much potential. Both young guys who could form a formidable partnership.
Jones should have been encouraged to go to Leicester when he had the chance. Glasgow didn’t need him as well as Johnson, Grigg, Pete Horne, McDowell and Steyn. Carrying such a big squad does no good for the players, the club or the national team. It’s becoming a worrying pattern with the Warriors – Bennett, Dunbar, now Jones all dramatically losing form.
Townsend could help by not having these 50-man training camps (to ease pressure on the pro teams), and by not freezing out certain players when they move away from Scotland.