The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Jones hopes element of surprise can help Scotland shock Wales
Scotland’s Huw Jones hopes the element of surprise can help him shock Wales at Murrayfield on Saturday.
The Edinburgh-born centre, who plays his club rugby for South African Super Rugby franchise the Stormers, is relishing his first RBS 6 Nations campaign.
While the majority of his Dark Blues team-mates will be familiar with Rob Howley’s squad from their Guinness PRO12 clashes, Jones is stepping into the unknown this weekend, but the 23-year-old hopes it will be the Welsh who will be left scratching their heads at full-time.
“I see the fact I haven’t played against most of these guys as an advantage as well as a disadvantage,” he said ahead of his maiden Dragons showdown.
“I might not know what to expect from them, but they don’t know what to expect from me too. I get a lot of my knowledge from my team-mates by asking them what they would do.
“Once you’re out on the field it’s not so much the analysis that goes through your head anyway but more the actual situation there and then.
“I’m all for a bit of analysis but at the end of the day you can’t always predict what someone will come up with off the cuff, so you don’t want to get it in your head they are going to play a certain way in case they do catch you off guard.”
Interim Wales boss Howley will no doubt have studied Jones’ five previous Test appearances in the hope of finding out how he will approach Saturday’s game, and will have noted the budding midfield relationship with Glasgow’s Alex Dunbar.
“It’s a fairly new partnership but I think we are improving game by game,” Jones said of the link-up, which will be rekindled next term when he completes a switch to Scotstoun.
“Defensively we have got a little bit better. We’ve been working hard at making sure we talk to each other the whole time.
“In the attacking side we also complement each other too and it’s gone quite well. We get on pretty well both on and off the pitch, so that helps form that bond.
“We’re training with each other every day right now, so you end up being able to read how each other plays and then react to it.
“That bond was probably the biggest factor in my decision to sign for Glasgow – and not just him. I’ve felt it with the rest of back line, which is pretty much the entire Glasgow back division.”
Jones expects Wales to target the Scottish scrum, which has creaked during both their opening-day win over Ireland and the Les Bleus loss in Paris.
But he stressed: “The main focus is actually on ourselves. I don’t think we played to our full potential in either of our two games so far.
“It was nice to win against Ireland but we were gutted with the France result.”