Chris Ashton’s timing could not have been better – much like that of his team. The weekend before Stuart Lancaster announces his World Cup training squad, the Saracens wing scored four tries to leapfrog all those queuing up behind, er, Exeter’s No8 Thomas Waldrom as the season’s top try-scorer. It capped a campaign that has seen England’s forgotten man rediscover the best of himself. If the England team, let alone squad, were selected on form alone, he would be in it.
“It’s been a long season,” he said. “If I don’t get in, I don’t have any regrets. I’ve had a good season with the club and hopefully it will go my way. If it doesn’t then I’ve been in the position before, and you just have to get on with it. It’s in Stuart’s hands.”
From such serenity of mind so often springs a wing’s best form; the tries follow. Ashton has played better than he did here without scoring this season. This spree merely lends the garnish. “I don’t think I actually beat a defender to score one of them today, but I’ll take them all. I thought it should have been five …”
Ashton finishes the regular season on 13, three behind Waldrom, after a last-round burst that raises him four places, one for every try, in the historic list of Premiership try-scorers, on which he now sits sixth. He last heard from the England coaches a couple of months ago, at the end of the Six Nations. “Stuart’s always encouraging, and I don’t think he would shut the door on anybody. All I needed was that bit of hope. You try to take the positives out of everything, and hopefully the setbacks make you a better player.”
It was a remarkable afternoon of fumbles and head-scratching, before the away team finally hit their stride – and, just as poignantly, the home one fell away. Saracens’ staff spent as much time monitoring events in Leicester and Exeter, punching numbers into calculators, as they did events on the field in front of them. They were always likely to harvest a full set of points from this fixture – indeed, they secured the bonus point on the stroke of half-time, having looked anything but champion material. Welsh had them on the rack for long periods of the first half, and the nine-point deficit at the interval did them scant justice.
But the Exiles just cannot sustain that level of performance into a second half. So many of their matches have seen them capitulate in the final quarter, and this collapse was particularly ugly. Saracens ran four tries in almost unopposed from the 59th minute to the 68th. They won the second half 42-0. Poor old Exeter, 160 miles away, did not stand a chance.
Which is what you might say of London Welsh, hopelessly out-gunned in this their second stint in the Premiership, and even unhappier than their first. Chris Elder and Josh McNally shone for them, as did Tom May, playing in his 247th and last Premiership match, but they have been so far off the pace, both on and off the field, that you wonder what anyone can have gained.
“I’m sure we’ll pick up the papers and read about woeful Welsh suffering another rout,” said Rowland Phillips, their articulate head coach, “but I do see the positives. You’re looking at the difference between haves and have-nots. Fitness-wise, I would put my team against anybody in this competition. It’s just that we have to fight so hard to stay in the game, and by doing that we’re losing energy. It’s like if you’re driving your car at 50mph and I’m driving mine at 100. I’m going to run out of petrol first. It’s actually the first 20 minutes that are costing us more than it is the last.”
For Saracens, the 100mph stuff resumes next weekend, when they travel to Northampton, Ashton’s former club. For that, among other reasons, there has been a certain amount of animosity between the two at the best of times. Ashton cannot wait. “We’ve led [the Premiership] from the front the past two years,” he said, “so the boot’s on the other foot. I don’t see there’s any better place for us to go. The pressure’s off. I remember when I was at Northampton and Saracens came and beat us in the semi-final. It’s a day I won’t forget. We thought we were going to smash them, and they turned us over. Hopefully, we can do that again. Certainly, we can relax and enjoy what might be our last game of the season.”
And, as Ashton knows, when you relax, you very often find your best form.
London Welsh Jewell; Awcock, Reynolds, May (capt), Elder; Barkley (Robinson, 65), Lewis (Rowley, 60); Aholelei (Trevett, 51), Britton (Morris, 50), Gilding (Cooper, 50), McNally, Corker, West (Down, 45), Waters (Browne, h-t), Fonua (Stegmann, 58).
Tries Warren, Elder. Cons Elder 2. Pen Elder. Sin-bin Corker.
Saracens Goode; Ashton, Bosch (Taylor, 60), Wyles (Hodgson, 72), Strettle; Farrell, De Kock (Wigglesworth, 50); M Vunipola (Gill ,60; M Vunipola, 73), Brits (George, 50), Du Plessis (Figallo, 50), Kruis, Hargreaves (capt; Itoje, 55), Wray, Burger (Brown, 67), B Vunipola.
Tries B Vunipola, Strettle, M Vunipola, Ashton 4, Goode, Figallo, Hodgson. Cons Farrell 9.
Referee Luke Pearce Att 3,633.
