Joe Jonas

Joe Jonas was born in Swellendam, in the Boland, and schooled at Glenwood High in the Durban suburbs. He joined the Biarritz academy in 2020, at nineteen, and has not played senior rugby anywhere but France since.

Wing and full-back at Stade Français, 1.80m and 90kg, and 25 years old.

Biarritz used him in the Supersevens first, which is where a young back in a French squad tends to be looked at before anybody risks him in the championship. His first appearance in the Top 14 came against Pau in November 2021, and his first try followed at Clermont, in his third start.

The club extended him to 2024 in December 2021, two months after that debut, which is the kind of speed that suggests a coaching staff had seen enough.

Paris signed him from 2024-25. The first season went well enough; the second did not, and by March 2026 he was on loan back at Biarritz for the rest of it.

Being used less in a second season at a big club is rarely about one thing, and a March loan back to the academy that raised you is the clearest signal a squad can send without saying anything.

What makes his case unusual is the absence of a South African chapter. A Glenwood forward or back of that age would normally take a Currie Cup contract and try to work back from there, and the players who come to France at nineteen instead are betting the whole career on it.

Note on his current club: Jonas is still listed in Stade Français‘s squad data. The Paris club did not keep him after the loan to Biarritz, and he signed a two-year deal with RC Vannes.