Huw Jones says Scotland need to beat Australia ‘to be taken seriously’

Huw Jones has admitted Scotland’s Autumn Nations campaign will actually depend on whether they beat a resurgent Australia at Murrayfield on Sunday.

The Scots recorded comfortable wins over second-tier Fiji and Portugal on either side of a 32-15 defeat to world champions South Africa, after which they were buoyed by their performance.

But center Jones admits he ultimately lost out to the Springboks and admits Scotland – ranked sixth in the world – must signal their intentions heading into 2025 by beating an Australian team who have re-emerged as a force with back-to-back impressive wins. England and Wales this month.

“Looking at the upcoming matches, we knew that the games in South Africa and Australia would be a big challenge,” he said. “Of course we have aspirations to be successful as a team, as a team, and we need to win games against the seven or eight best teams in the world.

– These are the games we need to start winning now if we really want to be taken seriously.

“We’re doing well, beating Fiji and Portugal and winning games on the summer tour, but we want to make progress. The game against South Africa was disappointing but we have to overcome it against Australia this weekend.

Jones expects an open game against a Wallabies team ranked eighth in the world and appears to be back on top under Joe Schmidt.

“They’ve been really good,” Jones said of Australia’s form this month. “They scored a lot of tries, they threatened everywhere. You see how the attackers wear them, you see what their backs do.

“I think it’s an exciting challenge. Hopefully, depending on the weather, it will be an open match. When we played against Australia in the past, it was quite a fun and relaxed match to be involved in, so we hope to do that again.

Scotland have won three of the last four meetings with Australia, although they lost the last meeting at Murrayfield two years ago by a point. Jones has missed the last two tests between the sides, so Sunday will be his first appearance against the Wallabies since scoring in a 53-24 win in Edinburgh in November 2017.

“The last time I played them was a while ago and we beat them pretty good!” he said. “But the games I haven’t played in lately have been close.

“It’s always exciting games and it’s Australia’s last game of the season so they’ll be giving it their all. We are at home, in front of our fans, and we want to do our best to play the best match possible.

“I think the good thing about the fall tests is that we can get through them.

“There were a lot of positives in the match against South Africa and it was a decent performance at times, but this is where we want to put in a great performance but ultimately come out on the right side of the result.”

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