Jones Happy To See Lineout Becoming ‘A Strength Of Ours’

Neve Jones never had any doubts about handling the physicality of Ireland’s Guinness Women’s Six Nations opener against France, even if it came less than a week after she helped Gloucester-Hartpury to more PWR glory.

The in-form hooker used a 48th-minute lineout maul to score her ninth try of the campaign as Gloucester-Hartpury overhauled final opponents Saracens, winning 34-19 at the StoneX Stadium to claim their third straight Premiership Women’s Rugby title.

Some of Gloucester’s international players were on the bench or rested for the first round of the Six Nations, but Jones started and played almost an hour of Ireland’s 27-15 defeat to France at Kingspan Stadium.

As vice-captain and a key cog in the Irish pack, there was no question of her not featuring and extending her run in the team to 25 starts in 26 Tests, despite her 75 minutes at the coalface against Saracens the previous Sunday.

“I think at the end of the day, it’s rugby. You have four white lines and 80 minutes of rugby,” she said, when asked about launching into the Six Nations immediately after a long but successful club season.

“The girls and coaches and management have been great whenever I’ve come back into the (Ireland) environment to manage me and incorporate me.

“We’re used to playing rugby week in, week out. It’s just a mindset thing – now we’re in camp, it’s for the green jersey.”

Whether it’s in the Premiership across the water, or the Six Nations or WXV, Jones continues to make a big impact as a tackler and a try scorer, and the statistics really back up how important a player she is for both club and country.

Accoring to Opta data from Stats Perform, she had an incredible tackle success rate of 99% (201 successful tackles) in league action for Gloucester this season. She packed a punch with 17 dominant tackles, and only Saracens’ Georgia Evans (20) had more.

The Ballymena-born front rower has been ever-present across the last three Six Nations tournaments, and led the way with the most work-rate actions per 80 minutes (carries, tackles, rucks) of any Irish player between 2022 and the end of last year.

Her total of 55.8 only trailed Wales lock Evans (57.4) and England’s Marlie Packer (61.7), while she crossed for her 12th international try last Saturday against France, making it four scores in her last nine appearances for Scott Bemand’s side.

Jones brushed off praise for her try-scoring exploits, preferring to highlight the hard work of her team-mates to set up the opportunities, and the influence that Alex Codling has had on the lineout since coming on board as forwards coach last August.

“I actually can’t take much credit for it (the try against France). There were loads of strong women in front of me. They just threw me over the line!

“The lineout was a huge success last week. I just think ‘Codders’ (Alex Codling) coming in, he has done a fantastic job with us.

“There’s a full buy-in with all of the girls. We don’t have questions, we push each other and work really hard when we are training together.

“It’s definitely something we have worked on and want to have as a strength of ours, and will continue to do so as the weeks go on.”

Having had some set-piece struggles in recent years, the girls in green delivered the second best performing lineout during the opening round. They won 18 or their 19 throws, with only defending champions England (13/13, 100%) having a better success rate.

Jones and fellow hookers, Clíodhna Moloney and the uncapped Beth Buttimer, have clearly been putting the hours in at the IRFU High Performance Centre, co-ordinating well with the likes of the fast-learning Erin King, who was credited with ten lineout takes and one steal on her Six Nations debut.

Asked about the sharpness of Ireland’s set-piece work from WXV1 and now into the Six Nations, the former Malone and Ulster forward replied: “That’s back to Codders, he’s done some great work with myself and the other hookers to improve on our throw and be confident.

“He has put time and work into us and put us in contact with people in the club to grow our strength away from here. I think it is just the confidence.

“He’s tweaked a few things here and there but nothing huge, because every hooker is different and throws differently so he doesn’t want to change too much.

“He just wants to instil that we’ve got it in the tank, and just do it when it comes to the weekend.”

Away from the scrums and lineouts against the Bleues, Ireland’s all-action starting front row of Niamh O’Dowd, Jones, and Linda Djougang were prominent again in the loose, making 28 ball carries (for 92 metres) and 31 successful tackles between them.

Having learned her impressive tackle technique from her father Dave, who has a strong rugby background of his own, Jones said previously that she just ‘loves defending’ and that it ‘kind of comes naturally’ to her. Gloucester and Ireland have certainly enjoyed the benefit of that.

Bemand’s charges come up against Italy in Parma on Sunday (kick-off 4pm local time/3pm time), targeting an important win on the road as they look to banish memories of last year’s frustrating 27-21 loss to the same team at the RDS.

The Azzurre racked up a total of 269 tackles across the 80 minutes against England last Sunday, and missed 20% of them. Despite leaking three tries to France the previous day, Ireland defended well at different stages and will be ready for more big collisions this weekend.

Whatever happens in round 2, Jones, who made the Six Nations Team of the Championship in both 2022 and 2024, can be sure of some post-match advice from her Dad. Whether she will welcome it is another thing!

“It’s just a bit of craic,” the 26-year-old said of her appetite for punching above her weight as a tackling dynamo. “I worked a lot (on my tackling) with my Dad growing up. I played mini rugby from six or seven, something like that.

“Being the smallest on the pitch, my Dad was like, ‘We’ll work on the tackle’. He played rugby (union) and rugby league, so he’s got a good base of the contact area game so (I) did a little bit growing up, and just continued to grow as I did too.

“He had us (myself and my brother) playing from like two or three in the living room, tackling each other. He’s a huge supporter of mine and I’m really thankful for everything he’s done.

“He always sends me a little spiel after a game saying, ‘This was good, well done on this, work a bit on this’, a bit of a synopsis of my game. (How well it is received) depends on what it says, I’ll leave it at that! He’s got a good rugby IQ.”