Carnegie will be in title mix vows Chris Jones

Yorkshire Carnegie’s new star signing Chris Jones refuses to accept next season’s Championship will be a two- horse race between his former club Worcester and fellow financial big-hitters Bristol.
Except for a brief loan spell at Fylde during his younger days at Sale, the 2014-15 campaign will be the former England international’s first experience of life outside the Premiership in a dozen years as a club pro.
But having seen how close Carnegie, then under the banner of Leeds, came to winning promotion last time, Jones sees no reason why his absence from the elite of English rugby should last any more than one season.
“If you look at the semi-final against London Welsh, Leeds were 13 points up with 10-15 minutes to go with an extra man on the field. Generally you’d expect a team to win in that situation and I’d have backed them to beat Bristol in the final. So they weren’t far away, they were perhaps just lacking a little bit of experience in how to ‘do a Munster‘ and close the game out.”
Jones continued: “It is massively important for Yorkshire as an area to get a club into the Premiership and it is massively achievable as well, although it is not going to be easy because Bristol and Worcester have thrown a lot of money at it.
“But, at the end of the day, in this league it is all about getting into the top four and peaking at the right time and that’s what we are aiming to do.
“Worcester won the Championship by a country mile the season before I joined them but it very nearly went wrong for them in the play-offs.
“I don’t think anyone can afford to be over-confident as there are five or six clubs who will be gunning for the play-offs and rest will no doubt raise their game against the teams that have spent big.”
In Jones, who was capped 12 times in the mid-Noughties, Yorkshire Carnegie have more than 200 games worth of Premiership rugby experience to draw upon.
The 34-year-old arrives at Headingley as a second row/lineout coach offering back-up at number six and eight, and no doubt keen to prove a point to Warriors’ boss Dean Ryan that he was wrong to let him go at the end of a three-year contract.
First and foremost, though, he is excited about helping to make Yorkshire Carnegie’s ‘regional rugby’ venture a success.
And, despite being a Mancunian by birth, Jones has no problems pulling on a jersey with the white rose of Yorkshire on his chest.
“We don’t have the budget of Worcester and Bristol but we’ve probably got more ambition, and the passion has been phenomenal since I’ve come here,” he said. “People want to get behind Yorkshire and want Yorkshire to do well and it is fantastic to be part of the set up.
“When I was at Sale they tried to rename themselves the Sharks and get all the North West clubs behind them but after a couple of weeks it sort of fell flat.
“There wasn’t the launch like this or brand rename whereas here a lot of time and effort has gone in behind the scenes to move this forward and make it a success.
“As players it is now our job to take this club into the Premiership.”
JON NEWCOMBE
*This article was published in The Rugby Paper on July 13