GLASGOW winger Lee Jones was relieved to leave Murrayfield for Scotstoun nearly three years ago - now he hopes to show how much he has progressed as a player when he starts against Edinburgh on Monday for the first time since that move.

The 28-year-old initially joined the Warriors on loan in February 2014 before signing a full-time deal later that year. By his own admission he did not enjoy the environment at Edinburgh towards the end of his time there, but he feels his old team have improved a lot since then and will be a real threat to the Warriors when they meet on Boxing Day in the first leg of the 1872 Cup.

“I’d imagine Edinburgh’s changed a lot since I was there,” said Jones, who came off the bench during one of the derbies last season but has now been named on the left wing for this game. “For me at the time it was a great move in hindsight, just in terms of the environment.

“I wasn’t enjoying the environment at Edinburgh as it was at the time. I’m enjoying my rugby at Glasgow.”

At the time Jones left, and for a good while after that, Edinburgh played a very limited style. But since Duncan Hodge took over as head coach from Alan Solomons earlier this season their players have had more freedom to play an attacking game, and Jones expects a tough encounter at the national stadium.

“I expect we’ll see them playing a bit more in terms of their back line attacking. Having played under Hodgy as a coach briefly at the tail end of my Edinburgh days, and when he was with Scotland as an assistant coach, he’s really focused on the details. He’ll be trying to play rugby as well, trying to play positive rugby, so I’d expect that from them.”

Edinburgh won both matches last year, and won the second leg the year before that to take the cup on aggregate. Jones knows if his old team can defend as well as they did in those matches, but also prove more of a threat in attack as they have been doing in the league and Challenge Cup this season, he and his Glasgow team-mates will be in for a real battle. But after two excellent wins in the Champions Cup against Racing 92 he is confident his team can take that form back into the PRO12 and end a run of three league defeats.

“We were obviously very disappointed with the league form going into those two European games, so to play really well in them has given us a bit more confidence, a bit more momentum. So for us it’s all about taking that back into the league form and into what will be a big game against Edinburgh.

“They’ve obviously got a lot of young guys in there that are doing well and coming through. Last year I think the main thing was they defended really well. We struggled to score against them, particularly in the last half hour - they put in a really big defensive performance. So we’d expect that from them again, but we need to be able to play the game that’s in front of us and attack well as well.”