Although they lost to favourites Wasps in the group stage, Jones’s side put on a stirring comeback against the same opponents with 30 seconds to go in the final at the Recreation Ground in Bath. “It was a great game,” said Jones, who produced a game-changing display of defence to keep Gloucester-Hartpury in contention. “I’m really loving sevens at the moment, and I don’t want the season to end.”
Her coach in the West Country, Susie Appleby, was full of praise for the player from Ammanford: “Hannah was incredible on Saturday, she played virtually every minute of every game. She’s an incredible international athlete who has played a lot of sevens. Having her in the squad was important.”
Jones was joined in the famous Cherry and White by fellow Wales internationals Sian Williams, Rebecca de Filippo and Beth Lewis, whilst promising youngster Ffion Lewis was also involved.
You could say Jones has been the face of the Wales Women squad this past year – both figuratively and literally. She was at the forefront of the Under Armour kit launch, something in which she takes great pride. “It was good to see the women being involved alongside the men,” says the 21-year-old. “Walking into the WRU shop and seeing my face on the walls was crazy.”
She says it’s been “my best year in rugby”, and when that takes into account a Commonwealth Games outing in Australia and a World Series qualifier in Hong Kong, you can see why. Things are going well under coach Jonathan Hooper, who has been overseeing the women’s sevens since Nick Wakley’s recent departure.
“We’re changing things about, going through new drills and keeping it fresh every training session. I’m just absolutely enjoying it, and I hope I can take that feeling into the fifteens when we play in the autumn.”
Luckily for Jones, she’s been able to tie in her physiotherapy degree at Hartpury with top-level rugby. “I’ve been on placement with the men’s sevens, so I’ve learnt a lot from [Wales Sevens physio] Gary Ahmed. I’ve been able to pick up on things from a physio and player perspective, which has been really useful.”
On the sevens front, she gets one more crack at the whip when Wales travel to Kazan in Russia at the end of August. “I want to keep playing as much sevens as I can. We started training last week, and we’re full pelt this week, so there will be a lot of training before we head out there.”
“We finished fifth in Marcoussis, one of our highest finishes in Rugby Europe. We took out quite a new squad and there was a fresh feel to it. Myself and Jaz Joyce were co-captains and we didn’t put too much pressure on the girls. To be fair to them, they reacted well to that and performed, so we’ve got high hopes for Russia.”
