Curb your enthusiasm
When the Newcastle United defender John Bailey first saw Paul Gascoigne training at the club he made a prediction: “He will either be one of the greats or finish up at 40, bitter about wasting such talent.”
As the Saracens wing Chris Ashton starts his second long suspension of the year, one which has all but extinguished the flickering flame of his international career, he can reflect on a career that is burning itself out by the strength of its own heat.
Gascoigne, a national hero after his exploits, and tears, at the 1990 World Cup when England reached the semi-final (Gascoigne would have missed the final had England beaten West Germany having picked up a second booking of the tournament), self-destructed in the following year’s FA Cup final between Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest when, after making the second of two high, wild tackles in the opening 15 minutes, he damaged knee ligaments that kept him out of action of 16 months. “He only has himself to blame,” said the presenter Des Lynam.
Ashton may not have Gascoigne’s innate talent, but he shares the footballer’s childlike enthusiasm for his sport, his relish for being the centre of attention and the exuberant way he celebrates scoring; he is one of the best finishers around but finished may be the word after the biting charges he had to answer at a disciplinary hearing this week and the ensuing 13-week suspension which means he will have spent six months of 2016 serving a ban.
The wing was banned for 10 weeks last January, having just been recalled to the England squad, for putting his hand near the eye of the Ulster centre Luke Marshall. If it were a disproportionate punishment – set high because the offence was bracketed alongside eye-gouging rather than coming under the provisions of a dangerous tackle or reckless challenge – there had been a drive by World Rugby to deter players from wrapping a hand around the face of an opponent. A long suspension was the chosen weapon.
And now, subject to appeal, he faces an even longer time watching from the stand. Saracens stood by their player before Tuesday night’s hearing, although the image of Ashton seeming to bite the hand of Alex Waller did not square with the contention that the player was being victimised by citing officers. The club is entitled to check the wording of Ashton’s contract to see whether a conduct clause had been breached, but it will stand by a player who struggles to control the almost nuclear energy he generates going into a game.
The bite on Waller was a petulant response to an act the wing had himself committed on the same ground eight months before and, as with Luis Suárez when he received a four-month ban from all football for biting the Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini while playing for Uruguay at the 2014 World Cup a year after committing the same offence for Liverpool against Chelsea, there was no mitigating factor.
Ashton’s first suspension was for tugging the hair of Alesana Tuilagi when he was playing for Northampton against Leicester in 2011 and after joining Saracens the following season he received a one-match ban for accumulating three yellow cards, having honed a tackling technique that owed more to mountain-climbing than rugby. The acts that have brought him before disciplinary panels have not been routine – a punch to the face or boot to the back– but those that are not so much the result of brain fades as a holiday of the senses.
Biting is one of the (few) offences that was not tolerated in the amateur era when jungle laws were on the statute book. Like spitting, a miscreant could expect to be clobbered by someone on his own side before an opponent got to him. Incidents have been few in the last 25 years: the highest profile one in the Premiership involved the Bath prop Kevin Yates who received a six-month suspension in 1998 and resurrected his career in New Zealand before returning to England and playing for Saracens. Others include fingers being nearly bitten off and ears being chewed in Wales as well as New Zealand.
Gascoigne battled to control his nervous energy, going into the 1991 FA Cup final in such a state of feverish excitement having struggled, as usual, to sleep the night before that he fell off the edge as he ran on to the field. Ashton is a wing who likes to involve himself in a game rather than hang around waiting for a pass but his enthusiasm too often gets the better of composure which is why his international career stalled two years ago on 39 caps and 19 tries.
Eddie Jones recalled Ashton to the England squad last January only for the 10-week ban to delay his comeback. In his first match for Saracens after the suspension at Bath, he scored two tries but escalated an incident after Anthony Watson took out Alex Goode in the air, shoving his opponent needlessly, and Jones’s admiration for Ashton cooled.
Saracens feel Ashton is being victimised, his reputation going before him, but that is to suggest Waller would not have been cited had he bitten Ashton’s arm. Waller could have been cited for two offences in the second-half, a dump tackle on Jamie George followed by head contact with the hooker’s face, but the referee dealt with both incidents on the field after watching a replay on the big screen, something that should rule out citing commissioner involvement.
There have been times when a player’s reputation seems to have been a factor – Dylan Hartley’s citing last year for a head-butt on Jamie George was arguably more about him than the offence, no pain or injury caused. But with his record why give the citing officer a decision to make?
Ashton will be inconsolable as he contemplates another long exile from something he loves. If he accepts that it was a consequence of his own rashness and owns up to an act which has no place in a sport that promotes family values, he will rise from it. If he plays the victim card, the only way will be down and, like Gascoigne, he will look back on a career which, while far from being a failure, delivered less than it should have with heart ruling head.
• This is an extract taken from The Breakdown, the Guardian’s weekly rugby union email. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
