British & Irish Lions: Huw Jones reveals secret to Huwipulotu’s success after fine effort against Waratahs
British & Irish Lions centre Huw Jones and midfield partner Sione Tuipulotu (inset).
Scotland outside centre Huw Jones caught the eye with a fine performance for the British & Irish Lions during their hard-fought 21-10 victory against the Waratahs in Sydney on Saturday.
The 31-year-old made his debut for the famous touring side off the replacements bench in the the Lions’ 54-7 win against the Western Force before making his first Lions start during last Wednesday’s 52-12 triumph over the Reds in Brisbane and celebrated that achievement by crossing for a try.
He got his name onto the scoresheet and delivered a solid performance but hardly set the world alight in that game.
However, it was a different story against the Waratahs as Jones shone on attack and was rewarded with a brace of tries for his efforts.
It helped that he was part of a centre partnership with Sione Tuipulotu, with who he also forms a seemingly telepathic link-up for Glasgow Warriors and Scotland.
‘Huwipulotu’ in fine form against the Waratahs
The midfield duo, who are known as ‘Huwipulotu’, showed why they are so successful as they combined brilliantly for the Lions against the Waratahs.
And during the early stages of that clash they showed their class as Tuipulotu ran onto a pass from Lions scrum-half Alex Mitchell inside their opponents’ 22 before firing out a perfectly timed no-look pass to Jones, who beat a couple of defenders with deft footwork before crossing for his first try.
He revealed after the game that his exciting partnership with Tuipulotu is something which does not happen by accident.
“We work hard a lot in training around getting connected and our running lines together,” Jones told Sky Sports.
“A lot of it is to do with timing and angles. We are constantly talking within the game, before set pieces, around which gaps we are targeting, which players we are targeting, trying to split defenders.
“If I take the first try, where we run down together, I know we are splitting that one defender, going inside/outside of him.
“We just have to make the outside guy make a decision, whether he is coming in or going out the back.”
A possible Lions midfield combination for first Wallabies Test
Jones and Tuipulotu’s partnership could see them lining up together for the Lions in the first Test against the Wallabies in Brisbane on July 19.
The Lions’ performance against the Waratahs was far from perfect as they were guilty of numerous handling errors but Jones believes they can fix those issues by playing more games with each other.
“It’s a lot to do with timing, getting used to the players around you, how they move, how they take it to the line, getting your timing off the back of that,” he said.
“It can’t always be a flat out sprint, you have to go with them and speed up at the right time.
“We have to stay in control of ourselves, slow our foot speed down, so we are not all running about a million miles an hour, we need to get a bit more connected.
“The ball was slightly greasy and the defence was a bit more line speed than we have faced in the last two games.
“Maybe that was a bit of a shock in the first half and we didn’t quite adjust properly.”
