Huw Jones admitted Scotland’s Autumn Nations campaign will effectively be defined by whether or not they defeat resurgent Australia at Murrayfield on Sunday.
The Scots have enjoyed comfortable victories over a second-string Fiji team and Portugal either side of a 32-15 loss at the hands of world champions South Africa in which they were heartened with their display.
Having ultimately fallen short against the Springboks, however, centre Jones acknowledges Scotland – ranked sixth in the world – must signal their intent heading towards 2025 by overcoming an Australia team who have re-emerged as a force with impressive back-to-back wins over England and Wales this month.
“Looking at the games coming in, we knew obviously the South Africa and Australia games would be the big challenges,” he said. “We obviously have aspirations to be successful as a team, as a squad and we have to be winning the games against the top seven, eight teams in the world.
“Those are games that we have to start winning now if we really want to be taken seriously.
“It’s all well and good beating Fiji and Portugal and winning our games on the summer tour, but we want to take strides. The South Africa game was disappointing, but we’ve got to nail it this weekend against Australia.”
Jones is expecting an open game against the Wallabies, who are ranked eighth in the world and appear to be getting back on upward curve under Joe Schmidt.
(These) are games that we have to start winning now if we really want to be taken seriously.
“They’ve been really good,” Jones said of Australia’s form this month. “They’ve scored a lot of tries, they’ve got threats everywhere. You see the way their forwards are carrying, you see what their backs are doing.
“I think it’s an exciting challenge. Hopefully, weather dependent, it’ll be an open game. When we’ve played against Australia in the past, it’s been a pretty fun one to be involved in, free-flowing, so we’d hope for that again.
Scotland have won three of their last four meetings with Australia, although they lost by a single point in the last encounter at Murrayfield two years ago. Jones missed the last two Tests between the sides so Sunday will be his first outing against the Wallabies since he scored in a 53-24 win in Edinburgh in November 2017.
“The last time I played them was a while ago, where we beat them by quite a lot!” he said. “But the games more recently I haven’t been involved in, but they have been tight.
“They’re always exciting games and it’s Australia’s last game of the season so they’ll be throwing everything at it. We’re at home in front of our fans so we want to put our best game out there.
“I think the good thing about these Autumn Tests is that we’re able to build through it.
“The South Africa game, there were a lot of positives from it and it was a decent performance in parts, but this is where we want to have that great performance, but ultimately come out on the right side of the score.”
