Huw Jones' 'here we go' Scotland moment as centre takes heart from footballers' attendance

Deep down, Huw Jones knew - although for a moment the Scotland centre thought he’d got away with it.

Jones and his teammates went down 32-15 to South Africa on Sunday, but it appeared the hosts had breached the impervious green Springbok wall in the first half when Ben White ended a lovely move by scoring a try.

Finn Russell even kicked the conversion before the TMO got involved. Alas, Jones was pinged for knock-on in the build-up. The Glasgow Warriors man had no complaints.

Huw Jones breaks through the South Africa rearguard during Scotland's 32-15 defeat at Murrayfield. | SNS Group / SRU

"Yeah, it was just as I was falling,” Jones said of his infringement. “There was confirmation when it came up on the big screen. I could see it, it was really frustrating on my part.

"For a moment, once the kick had gone through, I thought, ‘here we go’. Then I saw the referee go to the TMO and I thought, ‘this will get called back’. I apologised to the boys.”

Jones has nothing to be sorry for. He and his fellow centre Sione Tuipulotu were part of a backline that took it to South Africa for much of the match. The’ try’ against one of the world’s best defences was an example of what they can do when it all clicks.

"It was a really good attack,” said Jones. "It was absolutely everything we trained on. We knew they were going to fly up on us and get in a little pass. I can't remember which forward it was, but getting a little dent there and then playing a quick ball off that. That was exactly what we'd trained all week.

“It was a great try and then obviously it’s not given. There were probably a few moments in the game like that where a couple of errors, like me throwing a pass over Duhi's [van der Merwe] head. Skill execution. At this level, you don't get another chance really. That's frustrating.”

This was Scotland’s ninth defeat in a row by the Boks - with the men in blue not even landing a try in the past two encounters, one of which being last year’s World Cup defeat in Marseille. Even still, Jones feels Scotland are in a much better place than that clash 14 months ago.

From left, Scotland footballers Ryan Christie, Andy Robertson and John McGinn take in the South Africa match. | SNS Group / SRU

“We're gutted with the result, but I think we're moving in the right direction,” said Jones. “It's another loss to South Africa, but in a way, I felt, and I'm sure the boys will feel, that we were better this time round, if that makes sense.

“I think we're moving in the right direction, but it's really tough to let games like this slip away, because you don't get to play them very often. I don't know when we'll play them next, so it's really frustrating from that point of view. We're not far off it.”

Jones and Co had three interested spectators in Andy Robertson, John McGinn and Ryan Christie from the Scotland football team. The 30-year-old was not aware of their presence at Murrayfield until afterwards but was heartened that they offered support.

“I'm a football fan,” added Jones. “I do support Scotland when they play, but I'm an Arsenal fan. I wouldn't say I'm die-hard, but I watch their games. That's pretty cool that they came to watch. It's nice when you get high-profile guys coming to watch the games. Obviously, that'll be all over social media. Hopefully, it drums up a bit of support in Scotland. We want to grow rugby as a game, so people like that coming is pretty cool.”