Townsend salutes 'Huwipulotu', the Lions midfield made in Scotland

Huw Jones and Sione Tuipulotu have been a hit together for Scotland

The first time Huw Jones and Sione Tuipulotu played in a midfield together was December 2022 for Glasgow Warriors against Perpignan - Jones scored and Glasgow won.

Their first match as an international centre partnership was February 2023 against England - Jones scored and Scotland won. Their first start as a 12-13 combination for the British and Irish Lions was earlier this month against the Waratahs - Jones scored twice and the Lions won.

And now Huwipulotu go up another level - a Lions Test. This may not have come about had Garry Ringrose not suffered a concussion, effectively taking Bundee Aki's chances of a start with him, but they're the incumbents now and they're going to take a whole lot of shifting if their telepathic club and country understanding can be brought to the biggest stage of all.

They've arrived here via very different routes and Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend has had a front row seat.

Jones - the rise and fall and rise again

Jones, 31, landed in Scottish rugby with an almighty bang - power, pace, incredible lines of running, an unerring try-scoring record. Ten in his first 14 Tests - three against Australia, four against England. Unstoppable.

"When he first came through he would just wriggle out of tackles," says Townsend. "He knew exactly what he needed to do either to get into space or to force that defender to defend him, which opened up the space for someone else."

Everything was easy, until it wasn't. He sailed through 2016-17 and 2017-18. A World Cup beckoned in 2019 in Japan. A Lions tour looked likely in 2021. None of it happened. There were chunks of time when he couldn't even get a start for Glasgow, when he wanted out and when he was "at peace" with the end of his international career.

In the beginning, they called him 'Humble Huw', a wind-up based on his fantastic confidence. Humble ceased to exist along the way. Injuries came for him, a loss of form hit deeply, an absence of self-belief brought him to the brink. "I'd decided that was it, my international career was over," he said.

His defensive game was ripped apart, he got an unfair reputation of being indifferent, only keen on the big games for Scotland rather than coalface nights with Glasgow.

The opposite was the case, but that was him now. Branded. He wanted to talk to his Glasgow coach, Dave Rennie, but they never clicked. Jones had no confidence around him - nervous and sweating, he tried to articulate his frustrations but couldn't really get the words out right. He fell into a slump that nobody saw coming. Him, least of all.

So he missed out on the 2019 World Cup and didn't play for Scotland for close on two years. The comeback was launched in a season with Harlequins, when he started to rebuild.

"Those experiences would have hurt," says Townsend. "They've made him into the player he is today. You can react in two ways there. You can not work on the things you know you have to work on to get back to the level you're capable of playing, or you can say it's not for me, or it was the coach's fault, or whatever.

"At times like that, you just hope that players do make it. The feedback we were giving him was that he had to do more on the defensive side of it. He had a nine out of 10 attack and he needed to get his defence up to seven or eight out of 10 and he's done that. He's gone beyond it. We see his defence at the same level as his attack now. He's become a complete player.

"We've always wanted him to back himself more and get on the ball more because his running lines are world class.

"That little short ball that he's been getting so far on the Lions tour when he's played with Sione, that's a lot to do with him being in the right place at the right time for Sione to give him that pass when the defence has made one or two decisions and they've drifted out and he's through the hole. It's almost a total package in attack.

"He reminds me of Alan Tait from my time. He was really good at running those lines and scored a lot of tries. It's a different game now, but they're very similar."

Joint second try-scorer with three, third for line breaks and fourth for metres gained, Jones is having a big tour. The biggest examination has yet to come, though.

Tuipulotu - the angry child turned calm leader

It was last autumn when Tuipulotu sat down for a chat after a Glasgow game at Scotstoun and met the Lions question head-on. No shadow boxing, no hedging his bets. The 28-year-old was all-in. He wanted a spot on the tour so much it almost hurt. And now here he is, a soon-to-be Test Lion.

Tuipulotu's story began in Melbourne. The son of an Australian and a Tongan, the grandson of a Scot and an Italian, he speaks emotionally about his family and powerfully about his upbringing.

"I was an angry kid," he said when asked about his school years. "Angry at what was happening around me, frustrated because I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. My mentor at school, Mr Windle, an English guy from Newcastle, changed my whole outlook. He saved me getting expelled a couple of times and got through to me. I owe a lot to him. I stopped having a chip on my shoulder."

Tuipulotu is almost incapable of uttering a dull sentence, whether it's about his beloved Scottish granny, Jaqueline Anne Thomson, a woman who helped in part to raise him, or any other issue you want to throw at him.

He was playing club rugby in Japan when the offer came from Glasgow. His mates told him not to go. "Glasgow," they said "is the grimmest city in the UK." Turns out, it was the place that changed his life.

"When he was in Japan he was mainly playing on the wing," says Townsend. "He was powerful, dynamic, creative. If you've got someone, like Sione, who's carrying hard, but also can put a short pass in or a ball out the back, that's dangerous.

"When he first came over, he thought he wouldn't be able to do the things that centres do in the northern hemisphere, but he's worked really hard. The personalities of the two of them (Huwipulotu) are a really good mix - the creativity of Sione and the running lines of Huw, that's the reason they've gelled.

"They're both really good rugby players, so if it was an unstructured situation they just know how to get that ball into space and work off each other.

"The other way they've combined really well is in defence. They're just aware of what the person inside or outside them is going to do."

Tuipulotu has been good on this tour, but you sense there's another level in him, more power, more directness, more influence. He's been saying for the longest time that making trip was the measure of his dreams. The ultimate dream of being a winning Test Lion is now in his gift.

Russell completes historic Scottish 10-12-13

Finn Russell has been one of the Lions of the tour so far, arguably the Lion. Control, class, leadership - this has been a long time coming but we're most definitely living in Finn Time now.

A Scottish 10-12-13 in a Lions Test has never been seen before and the trio will trouble Australia because in the blue of their country they have an exceptional record against them.

When they met was last autumn Tuipulotu scored in a comprehensive Scotland victory. Russell has won four in a row against the Wallabies. Jones has won his past two Tests against them.

"The communication between Sione and Finn is impressive. Sione shares the load in terms of what we should be doing on the edge attack," adds Townsend. "If you've got someone of Sione's calibre saying, 'This is the play' then Finn will trust that and it'll allow him to be more instinctive.

"So Finn will have another familiar voice outside him that will be telling him, 'I think there's more space out here, or there's kick space there'. He helps Finn see those pictures.

"The skill level that Finn brings, it will be hard for defenders to match all three of them up, because Finn's got a very good running game too, if they start to drift towards Sione and Huw."

Speaking from Auckland, where Scotland are preparing to play Samoa, Townsend said he was a proud coach; happy that the work he's seen these guys put in for so many years has paid off.

If part one was making the tour and part two was making the Test side, the hardest part of all is now upon them.