Mark Jones has praised the Ospreys squad for the way they have handled a year of uncertainty over the region’s future, and called for clarity as the club prepares for the new season.
The Swansea side open their United Rugby Championship campaign away to the Hollywoodbets Sharks in Durban on Saturday 26 September, and do so under a cloud that has hung over the region for months.
The Welsh Rugby Union intends to cut the men’s game to three professional teams by 2028, with the Dragons and Cardiff poised to be handed licences. That leaves the Ospreys and the Scarlets competing to be the surviving side in the west, and the region’s players and staff living with the doubt.
“They’ve dealt with the to-ing and fro-ing throughout the year around ‘will it be four, will it be three, will it be two, will we buy Cardiff?’,” Jones said, speaking on the BBC’s Scrum V.
“All those sorts of things were going on and, in the large part, they did an incredible job. Not just the players, the staff as well.”
A call for certainty
The WRU has said the process to set the framework for its final decision will begin in December and conclude before the end of the 2026-27 season, prolonging the wait for those whose jobs depend on it.
“The players and the staff, they need the support now more than ever through this period,” Jones said.
“There are some really good, talented players in these regions. They just need a bit of time, some good support and some certainty.”
It is a poignant backdrop to what should be a landmark campaign, with the Ospreys returning to a redeveloped St Helen’s in the city, though their first home game there does not come until the Dragons visit on Saturday 24 October, after four opening fixtures on the road.
An Australian accent, born of necessity
On the field, the most visible change is the influx of Australian talent, with Jones able to field a starting side a third Australian this season, but it is an overhaul he admits was forced by circumstance.
The move began in the summer of 2025 with lock Ryan Smith, signed to soften the loss of Adam Beard to Montpellier. Three Wallabies have since followed to west Wales, back-row Liam Wright, centre Lalakai Foketi and wing Marika Koroibete, along with fly-half Lawson Creighton.
The overhaul has excited supporters after the departures of Jac Morgan and Dewi Lake, but Jones was candid that the timing was far from ideal.
“When we were looking in the market it was May, because that was really when we got the go-ahead from the Ospreys board to start recruitment,” he said.
“You should be done at Christmas, you shouldn’t be looking in May, so some of it was necessity.”
‘We could cash in on the cohesion’
The first piece was Wright, a name that had kept appearing on the Queensland Reds footage the Ospreys studied while scouting Smith.
“Who’s a guy that ticks a lot of boxes for what we need and happens to be very friendly with the lock we’d already signed?” Jones said.
“After that, we thought if we are going to bring three or four players in, we should probably get them from the same country for the cohesion bit. They all knew each other, and we thought the best chance of them settling in and being happy was to recruit from the same sort of area.
“There were some other options from different parts of the world, but we felt the cohesion was something we could cash in on in terms of getting everybody up to speed quickly.”
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