| Date of birth | (1998-12-26)26 December 1998 (age 26) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Place of birth | County Antrim, Northern Ireland | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 157 cm (5 ft 2 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 72 kg (159 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Neve Jones (born 26 December 1998) is an Irish rugby player fromBallymena. She plays forGloucester-Hartpury, Ulster and theIreland women's national rugby union team.
Jones started playing rugby at age 6, through mini rugby in her local clubBallymena RFC. There was no girls' rugby in her schoolsCambridge House Grammar School andBallymena Academy. Neve's attempts to launch it at both schools were rejected by the schools so she joinedMalone RFC when she was 14.[1]
She captained the Ulster U18s to the first Irish U18 Provincial trophy in 2016.[2]
Jones was Malone's top try-scorer in 2019 and the winner of the 2020 Energia Women'sAll Ireland League Rising Star Award.Ulster under 18 player of the year.[3]
On 7 January 2022, Gloucester-Hartpury announced that they'd signed Jones to their squad.[4]
Jones first got selected to theIreland women's national rugby union team in 2020, making her the first female international player to represent Malone RFC.[5]
She made her debut as a replacement versus Italy, in the2020 Women's Six Nations.[6]
In the2021 Women's Six Nations, she played as a replacement, versus Wales.[7] She was named inIreland's XVs side for the2025 Six Nations Championship in March.[8][9]
Jones is studying sports coaching at theUniversity of Ulster in Jordanstown.
Before she played rugby she was involved in swimming, netball and jiu jitsu.[citation needed] She took up ladies gaelic football in 2020 and plays for East Belfast GFC, the first GAA team to be set up there in nearly 50 years.[10]