Jones feeling right at home having left Blues behind

Sporting teasers are the life’s blood of many a barstool conversation so here’s one that will have rugby fans all over the country perplexed: When Felix Jones captained Munster in the Guinness Pro12 match against Treviso, was he the first Leinsterman to do so?

The 27-year-old former St Andrews College student doesn’t know, although he would like to believe his appointment to such a position is a demonstration of how well he has settled in a new environment.

“I’ve been accepted here since the moment I came down and I think if you ask a couple of the other guys, Keats [Ian Keatley] and Andrew Conway, they’d say the exact same,” said Jones.

“It’s a very welcoming place and I think if you’re willing to invest in the group, it will be returned to you. At the time when I was in Leinster, I was still under Academy contract although I was training with the senior team and trying to break into a back three that was made up of highly established internationals.

“Not just Rob [Kearney], they had Girvan Dempsey there, they had Shane Horgan there, Isa Nacewa was still there and it was very hard for a young guy to break through. At the time an opportunity came my way to come down here and I thought it was the right decision at the time.”

Jones didn’t know whether he would lead the side against his former team at the Aviva tomorrow as he spoke this week but one way or the other, the prospect didn’t faze him.

“I consider Munster my home now,” he insisted. “I’ve been here for a number of years. All I considered when I arrived was ‘can I get myself into the team?’ so you try to put yourself in the best light possible. Myself and Keith [Earls] would have been the youngest in the squad. Obviously, that changes as the years go on with younger fellas coming through but even at that stage I still felt accepted.”

Jones laughed quietly at the idea that he might be considered a Paul O’Connell style of captain (“you’d have to ask the lads”) before adding: “I suppose I try to conduct myself professionally in and around training and not just at games. I just try to give my best effort. I don’t do things half-heartedly. That’s the way I treat my training, that’s the way I treat playing games.”

And that’s probably why injury blighted the early years of his Munster career. A combination of bad knocks to the neck almost as soon as he arrived in 2009 and foot injury in a 2011 World Cup warm-up match for Ireland against France cost him a place in the New Zealand squad. Hopefully, though, that ill-fortune is behind him now with his immediate thoughts on tomorrow’s big game at the Aviva.

“Munster and Leinster is always going to be a massive game,” he stated. “Given how both teams have started their seasons, I don’t think either will be too happy. I think guys know what our record is up in Dublin but there’s no need for it to be directly highlighted. I think guys know it.”

Jones fully understands why coach Anthony Foley was so frustrated with last week’s game against Ospreys being played on the Welsh side’s terms.

“We just have to play the game in the right areas of the pitch and not waste a huge amount of energy in the wrong areas,” he agreed. “It was discussed during the game and again highlighted during the week.”

With the November internationals looming, tomorrow’s game assumes greater significance for several players on either side.

“Yeah, of course, guys know they’re playing against guys who are either in their position or in positions they want to be in,” he said.

“That’s why these inter-provincial games are so good, because guys are competing not only for their provinces but potentially for international positions as well.”

And his final word on the game: “If we win and people are writing us off, we’ll benefit from that. The flip side is if we lose and people are writing us off, they’re going to continue to do that.”