Jones aims to prove worth to Scots clubs

SURPRISE Scotland newcomer Huw Jones will be offered a chance to join either Edinburgh or Glasgow Warriors for next season if he impresses on his international debut on the tour of Japan.

The uncapped 22-year-old centre, who was drafted into the 27-strong squad as a replacement for the injured Finn Russell, has been playing for the Stormers in Cape Town for the last two years.

But Sportsmail understands the South African club will not stand in the way of an approach by the SRU to buy out the final four months of his contract.

Now Edinburgh-born Jones, whose family have an English and Welsh heritage, will have to show Vern Cotter he is worth a deal with both his attitude at training and his performances in the back-to-back Tests in Nagoya and Tokyo.

Jones, who moved from Scotland to England as a two-year-old when his father got a teaching job south of the border, joined up with the Scotland squad for the first time at Murrayfield on Monday and since then has been working closely with attack coach Jason O’Halloran.

He feels it will make sense for Jones to move from South Africa to Scotland if he wants to pursue an international career.

Having him under the nose of head coach Cotter, where his progress could be monitored, would give him a much better chance of winning caps.

‘It would definitely make sense but, in terms of how that process goes, it’s up to various parties to work that out,’ said O’Halloran.

‘He’s with us and, what he does after that, I’m unaware at this stage. I can’t speak about his future in terms of a club and I don’t know what his contractual situation with the Stormers is.

‘All I know is he’s here for the next couple of weeks and we’re pleased to have him.

‘We were aware of his Scottish background and he had been on the horizon for a while. I think Glasgow Warriors tried to make something happen in the last couple of seasons, so we were well aware of the possibility of him being involved with Scotland at some stage.

‘What we see in him is a guy who’s a really good ball carrier. He’s a good distributor of the ball, as well, and builds more depth in the centre where we’ve got reasonable depth already.

‘Having Ruaridh Jackson as stand-off with us, and Peter Horne and Greig Laidlaw as back-ups at 10 if needed after Finn was ruled out, we felt it was worth bringing in another midfielder like Huw as opposed to a first five. ‘I’ve watched Huw on video starting against the Hurricanes last year and he played really well in that game. Ever since, I’ve thought he’s quite a good footballer in the games I’ve seen. ‘He can play either inside or outside centre, although I know he does prefer 13. I see a skill set in him that lends itself to both positions because he can catch and pass to width really well, which means he can play at 12 pretty effectively as well.’ New Zealander O’Halloran does not believe having just three weeks to prove his worth puts extra pressure on Jones (below), who is likely to return to South Africa — at least in the short-term — at the end of the two-Test series in Japan. ‘Modern rugby players often have to flit between environments, so I don’t think it will take him particularly long,’ he said. ‘You give Huw a week or 10 days in this environment and he’ll have a good understanding of how we want to play. ‘We’ve got such a welcoming group and we have some good leaders like Greig Laidlaw. I think he’ll learn the game plan pretty quickly.’