[2] At club level, he played for Randwick and the New South Wales Waratahs in the Super 12, making eleven appearances in the 1998 competition and eight in 1999, scoring a total of three tries.
[4] In June 1999, Jones-Hughes was named in a preliminary Wales squad for the World Cup; that selection was challenged by the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) as Jones-Hughes had previously played for the Australia national team in an uncapped match while touring in Argentina in 1997, as well as for the Australian Barbarians, who were considered Australia's de facto second team at the time.
[13] They also complained over advertisements run in Australian media encouraging other players with Welsh ancestry to declare eligibility for the Wales national team.
[15] He was named on the bench for the opening match of the World Cup against Argentina,[16] and impressed enough to earn a starting spot on the right wing for the second game against Japan;[17][18] however, he was left out for the quarter-final against Australia,[19] which Wales lost 24–9.
[29] In March 2000, his eligibility for Wales was again called into question when it emerged that teammates Shane Howarth and Brett Sinkinson could not prove their Welsh heritage, and Jones-Hughes was investigated along with English-born, South Africa club prop Peter Rogers and New Zealand–born full-back Matt Cardey.
[30] Jones-Hughes was ultimately not implicated, but his call-up by Wales resulted in the ARU proposing changes to IRB regulations that would make it harder for players to switch nations.
[31] He suffered an ankle ligament injury in the final game of the season and was forced to withdraw from a Welsh development tour to Canada that summer.
[33] He suffered a knee injury late in the season against Swansea and missed Newport's 13–8 win over Neath in the Principality Cup final.