Dorian making the most of French living
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Dorian Jones is about to say farewell to the Stade Chanzy. With his penultimate game for relegation-battling SAXV to come this evening at home to Biarritz, the fly-half is bidding adieu to one French sojourn before embarking on another.
Travelling comes naturally to the man who’s more or less been on the move ever since he packed his bags and left his beloved Blaenau Gwent as a teenager. “I went to Myerscough College in Preston, so I’ve been used to living away from home since I was young,” he says. “My dad [Kingsley] was coaching Sale at the time and I got offered an academy deal with them, but he was adamant he wanted me to get an education first.”
Instead, Jones moved back home with his mum in Ebbw Vale and enrolled at UWIC (now Cardiff Met), where he set in motion what he hopes will be the next stage of his career: teaching PE. But there’s plenty more to be done before he picks up his coffee mug, trackies and whistle.
“I’ve signed for Nice next season,” says the 28-year-old of the ambitious third-tier side. “They’re second in the league with a few games in hand and the top two teams come up. I’m hoping they get promoted because they’re a good side, and it’s a big project.”
The circumstances of his recruitment to Les Aigles are a good example of how small the rugby world can be. “I got a phone call from their backs coach, Martin Jágr, who played one season for Pontypool in 2001,” Jones says. “He was a Czech wing who then went to play for Toulon with Umaga and Mehrtens. He told me that Nice’s plan was to come up to D2, and if that happened would I join them? I replied that I’d love to go to Nice either way.”
Jones in action for Cross Keys in the 2014 SWALEC Cup Final against Pontypridd.
There are some Celtic ties to Jones’s new club. Not only did Warren Gatland’s Wales base themselves at the Stade des Arboras for a week during their 2019 Grand Slam-winning campaign, but the club also had a recent performance pathway deal with the Scottish Rugby Union. “It’s a very good set-up there,” says Jones, who admits that life on the Côte d’Azur holds many appeals outside of rugby too. “When I was at school in Brynmawr I never thought that one day I’d be living and working in Nice.”
Blessed with a happy-go-lucky personality, he appears to have enjoyed every stage of his career – even the most challenging ones. “There were great days with Cross Keys and Ebbw Vale, which are easy to forget about, but when I look back on Facebook I realise it’s probably when I won the most,” he laughs. “Winning the league with Ebbw Vale, the Swalec and league cup final with Cross Keys.
“That’s why you play rugby, for those cup final games, whereas at Dragons and now here in France it can be tough.”
Featuring for Dragons against Edinburgh in the PRO14, 2018.
Whilst at Dragons he spent time on loan at Worcester in 2018, and much to his regret wasn’t given the opportunity to see out his contract at Rodney Parade. “I had a year left and it’s my home region. I didn’t really want to go.” He was 25 years old and reasoned that his chances of playing for his country were slim. “The next day a French agent rang me. I thought if I wasn’t going to ever play for Wales, why not get something else out of rugby? Let’s use it to travel.”
Angoulême, the “balcony of the southwest”, is located 90 minutes or so from Bordeaux. The purple-coloured club is a successful merger of nearby Soyaux (red) and Angoulême (blue). It proved to be the ideal setting for Jones. “In my first season there I probably played the best I’ve ever played,” he says. “It was a new environment, fresh start, and the coaches were really good with me. They let me take the reins and play how I wanted.”
He doesn’t deny that assimilation for foreigners can be hard. “You need to accept that when foreigners come to France you won’t see them at their best for three or four months,” according to Jones. “It’s the adjustment to the long days, not much food, two-hour sessions in boiling weather. Oh, and in three seasons I’ve had four coaches!”
On the charge for the Steelmen in a 2018 WRU Cup tie with RGC.
Fortunately for Jones, he managed to spend the first lockdown at home with his mum in Brynmawr. “I was on holiday in Dubai during my week off when the club doctor rang to tell me not to come back to France because the games were cancelled,” he says. “I love coming home because I miss my family. I go training with Ebbw Vale – it’s like I still play for them! [Head coach] Greg Woods is awesome with me. I even ran the tee on for my brother, Rhys, who’s playing there now.”
Back in France, citizens must abide by a 7pm curfew and use an app that notifies the local government of their whereabouts. He felt the full impact of the restrictions towards the end of last year when his grandfather, Phil, a big figure in the rugby world, passed away.
“The hardest thing was not being able to go to New Zealand and say goodbye,” he says. “My old man did it: two weeks quarantining in a hotel just to attend the funeral, then he flew straight back to Canada. I was lucky because I went to see him in the summer before lockdown to spend some time with him, because I knew my grandad was getting on. It’s a good job I did.”
His current life may be far removed from his days as a rugby officer at Brynmawr Foundation School, but that doesn’t mean it’s a world he doesn’t want to return to. “When I finished uni, Lyn jones signed me for the Dragons, so I trained in the mornings and spent my afternoons at Brynmawr.
“I ended up playing in a European semi-final, and the day before I was at Brynmawr school refereeing a year 7 game!”
With the season almost over, then, Jones will soon be back home in Brynmawr, making the most of the eternal hills to make sure he’s fighting fit for life on the French Riviera.
