Leeds Rhinos: Reliability of ‘Jonesy’ leaves his coach full of praise

The England second-row, who tirelessly runs on some sort of bottomless pit of energy, makes his 300th appearance for the Headingley club at Hull FC tomorrow.

Strangely, such a feat in its own right is not out of the ordinary.

Team-mate Danny McGuire reached that figure earlier this season, Rob Burrow surpassed it more than two years ago and prop Ryan Bailey is just 15 games away from joining them.

Rhinos captain Kevin Sinfield, incredibly, now has 500 as the next milestone in his sights and it is no surprise these gilded campaigners have formed the backbone of so many title-winning sides.

However, it is easy to see why McDermott – such a tough, uncompromising forward himself when battling away at Bradford – can fully appreciate the unstinting work the reliable Jones-Buchanan consistently delivers.

“Jonesy’s one who is getting better as he gets older,” he told the Yorkshire Post about a player who turns 32 in August.

“The older you get the wiser you get and if you can keep on playing until you are 33, 34 and 35 you actually get to be a wise player.

“Usually, though, by that sort of time your body starts falling apart and people retire.

“But Jonesy’s getting to that area of his career now where he is really understanding his role.

“He’s a huge influence on the team’s performance at Leeds because he does so much of the hard work. He’s not one that goes unnoticed as he has quite a bit of strike in him as well but he’s one of the good ones.

“He’s up there with the best of those soldiers that every team needs and is very important to this side.”

With such an innate work ethic, whether through taking the hard carries at the start of a set or an ability to continually align himself for tackle after tackle, Jones-Buchahan will undoubtedly be crucial in helping his home-town club out of their mini-blip.

The Super League champions face losing four consecutive games for the first time since 2006 if they fall at the KC Stadium and, without talismanic influences such as injured prop Jamie Peacock, he will be called upon once more to lead from the front.

“Jonesy’s robust and has some real grunt in him,” continued McDermott, about a player who debuted for Leeds in 1999.

“He can play front-row and at times he does play like one, moving to the middle and just getting some of those hard yards for us.

“The game is simple at times. It literally is about advancing the ball quicker than the opposition can regroup and getting onside. So, sometimes, you just need someone to put their hand up and run the ball as hard as they can.

“Quite often for us, that’s Jamie Jones. He does it relentlessly but he has a pass in him, too, and you could almost put him at centre as he’s that type of speed as well.

“He’s been outstanding for us. Even in these times of difficulty where we find ourselves at the moment we’ve still got two or three strong peformers.

“He’s one of them with Brett Delaney and Kylie Leuluai being others. They have stepped up and really given a lead to the team.”

McDermott’s former Bradford team-mate Steve McNamara is set to name his England squad next week for the game against the Exiles.

Back-row is probably the most competitive slot he has to work with given the likes of Sam Burgess, Gareth Hock, Ben Westwood, Liam Farrell, Jon Wilkin and, of course, Hull FC captain Gareth Ellis are all vying for places.

“He’ll be in the mix,” insisted McDermott. “There’s a lot of good back-rows around the competition and they all have a fair say.

“If someone like Jamie Jones-Buchanan doesn’t get in the team it would have to be for very specific reasons like they want to play a certain style that doesn’t suit him.

“But I can’t see how they can keep him out of the big (World Cup) squad at least.”

Hull, meanwhile, can call upon two more classy second-rows of their own tomorrow night.

Australian Ben Galea and England Knights international Joe Westerman are both named in their 19-man squad after recovdering from dislocated thumbs.

Influential half-back Richard Horne is missing, though, as he awaits scan results on the foot injury he suffered in their 22-16 win over Hull KR at Magic Weekend.

That was their seventh win in eight games but it came in controversial circumstances after video referee Steve Ganson made a huge blunder awarding Hull’s winning try.

Coach Peter Gentle revealed: “We’ve treated the derby game as a loss. I don’t think we played well enough to deserve a win.

“We played for 10 minutes against KR and need to play for 80 against Leeds; we’ll never be that bad again and get a result.

“Leeds are a champion side who probably deserved to beat Wigan on Sunday. They’ve lost three but played three very good sides. We are expecting to play the champion side.”