Jon Welsh


Jon Welsh is a Scotland international rugby union player currently playing for Newcastle Falcons. Welsh was previously at Glasgow Warriors. Welsh is a former Junior boxing champion, in the end choosing to play rugby professionally.

Club Career

Welsh begun playing professionally for Glasgow Warriors around 2008 and was named in the Pro12 Dream Team at the end of the 2011/12 season. One of the high points of Welsh's club rugby career came at Glasgow Warriors. He was a key member of the 2015 Pro12 Grand Final winning squad and played for Glasgow in the playoff final against Irish side Munster. Glasgow had a year previously, lost the 2014 final against Leinster. Welsh also featured in that final, making it second time lucky in 2015. Welsh signed for Newcastle Falcons later the same year.

International career

On 1 September 2015 Welsh was named in Vern Cotter's Scotland squad for the 2015 Rugby World Cup. On 18 October 2015 he was involved in a controversial incident in the final minutes of Scotland's quarter final against Australia. Scotland were defending a 34–32 lead going into the final minutes when a penalty was given by referee Craig Joubert for an apparent offside offence committed by Welsh. The ball had been knocked forward by John Hardie and was also touched by Australian scrum-half Nick Phipps before Welsh picked the ball up. Had Joubert deemed Phipps' touch to be intentional then the penalty would have been downgraded to an Australian scrum. Bernard Foley kicked the resulting penalty and sent Australia through.