Having produced a spirited showing last time out to pick up an attacking bonus point in the 53-40 defeat by last year’s runners-up Bulls, Jones’ side will be looking for more of the same from their second game of the season in Pretoria.
In their way stand a Stormers side bang on form having turned heads with their 35-0 victory over Leinster on home soil last weekend.
The Ospreys bring in Keiran Hardy for Ruben Morgan-Williams at Scrum-half and freshen up the pack with starts for Gareth Thomas and Rhys Henry, whilst there is a start for lock Hugh Sutton.
Wales captain Jac Morgan again misses out with a slight calf problem, which sees James Ratti coming in at six, whilst Ross Moriarty switches from blind-side flanker to number eight, with Morgan Morse dropping to the bench.
Jones says his side will not be overawed by their opposition having triumphed on their last two meetings with the Springbok province. The most recent a 37-24 victory at the Brewery Field 12 months ago.
“The result last year definitely gives those who have been involved the confidence that it can be done,” said Jones in his pre-match press-conference.
“To say I’m confident against a South African team on away soil would be a bit of a stretch because they’ve shown time and time again that they are such a difficult team to beat.
“I know John Dobson [Stormers head coach] was particularly upset the last time we won out here, and we know that they’ll be smarting from it.
“To zero Leinster, the highest try-scoring team in the league last year, is a pretty impressive feat.
“All we can do is make sure that we get our own game right, we’ve got lots to work on from the last game, but we’re working on it from a positive position.
“The boys feel good, they know why we didn’t get certain things right, it’s not like we’re searching around, we just need to deliver.
“For 50 minutes, we were more than on par with the Bulls in areas. Some we were on top, others we were getting stretched around certain aspects of our game.
“Going into the most physical game of the season against the toughest side to travel too, at high altitude – the boys can be proud of what they did.
“But the quarter after half-time we paid the price for a bit of inaccuracy in the end.
“We have to get our fundamentals right around set-piece, attack and defence. Our aggression around our defense was great, it’s just a case of trying to get up to speed with the new season.
“We want to play with consistency a bit longer, continue with the attacking intent, and look to take a step forward without the ball this week.
“The Stormers feed off kicking the ball a bit and retain a lot of them. The good thing is it’s only them that take more than us, so we should take a lot of positivity from that.
“I’m excited to see how the boys back up this week. It’s a tough ask going to Highveld and having a six-day turnaround. We are going to see the mentality of the boys and their ability to go back-to-back in two very tough games”
Ospreys XV:
Walsh, Kasende, P Cokanasiga, K Williams, Giles; Edwards, Hardy; G Thomas, Lake (capt), R Henry, R Davies, Sutton, Ratti, Deaves, Moriarty.
Replacements:
L Lloyd, C Jones, T Botha, Fender, Morse, Morgan-Williams, Florence, Hopkins.
Stormers XV:
Simelane; Senatla, Nel (capt), Du Plessis, Zas; Matthee, Duvenage; Matongo, Venter, Fouche, Smith, Schickerling, Theunissen, Evans, Roos.
Replacements:
Kotze, Vermaak, Sandi, Van Heerden, Dixon, De Villiers, Ungerer, Swart.
[Lead image: Ospreys Rugby]
