Chris Ashton, the Guinness Premiership’s leading tryscorer, was 19 when he turned his back on rugby league. Although earning only £12,000 a year on an academy contract, he was already a prolific member of the Wigan Warriors team when Northampton came knocking.
One of league’s most exciting young players was reportedly tempted to cross codes with a 12-fold salary increase. It was a sum that Wigan balked at because it would have put Ashton on wages above those of at least two established Great Britain players. Northampton liked what they saw in the strapping youngster with a blistering turn of pace, but it was a gamble, nonetheless.
Unlike Andy Farrell, from the same Orrell St James amateur club as Ashton, there was no fast track to England recognition for the Wigan teenager, who had already broken into the second-tier league team at international level and, seemingly, had the world at his feet in his native code. It was a case of starting over again.
Two-and-a-half years on, Ashton has more than found his feet in union. He is a former league player catching the England selectors’ eyes for more than simply a past reputation. Jim Mallinder, the Northampton director of rugby, and his coaching staff have worked hard to develop Ashton and, in his third full season, the 22-year-old is delivering impressively.
“He’s on fire at the moment,” Mallinder said after Stephen Myler’s match-winning conversion of Ashton’s last-gasp try at Franklin’s Gardens. “We knew he had potential.”
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That potential was borne out during his first full season at Wigan in 2006, when he scored 15 tries from full back but was criticised for his defensive ability under the high ball. His potency in union has mostly come on the wing, averaging more than a try a game during 58 appearances in all competitions since 2007 and recording his sixth and seventh Premiership tries on Saturday, after a hat-trick in their previous game against Newcastle Falcons.
Ashton’s two shafts of brilliance pierced the gloom of an ugly, ill-tempered encounter, which Northampton were fortunate to win, keeping them within one point of second-placed London Irish. Bath felt doubly aggrieved to lose after Matt Banahan — an England incumbent on the wing, whom Ashton outstripped for his first try — was sent off 14 minutes from the end for some overly aggressive rucking on Myler, Northampton’s replacement fly half.
Banahan, who started England’s three autumn internationals, faces a minimum two-week ban at an RFU disciplinary hearing this week. “From where I was sitting, it didn’t look like a red card,” Steve Meehan, the Bath head coach, said. “It’s even worse that Myler said that he [Banahan] made contact with his forearm, not his head. I do know that the assistant referee said he made contact with his head. The referee wasn’t influenced by anyone except the assistant referee, who told him it was a red card.”
The loss of Banahan would undermine Bath’s Heineken Cup hopes in back-to-back pool games against Edinburgh this weekend and next, as surely as their undermanned defence was outmanoeuvred by Ben Foden’s break and offload to Ashton. Without Banahan, who had set up Bath’s only try, by Shontayne Hape, there was no one to stop him.
By kicking out on the full in the last minute when outside his 22, rather than winding down the clock, Nick Abendanon invited the trouble that resulted in a seventh league defeat, leaving Bath one place and three points off the bottom of the table from Leeds Carnegie, whom they meet in a potential relegation decider on January 2.
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“Overall, it was a far better performance, with far more intent,” Meehan said. “We copped it from all corners, and we’re not denying we didn’t deserve it, given last week’s performance [against London Irish]. But the players need to look at this performance and say, ‘OK, that’s what we’re capable of and that’s what we need to do to get everybody behind us.’ ”
Scorers: Northampton: Tries: Ashton 2 (34min, 80+2). Conversion: Myler. Penalty goal: Geraghty (21). Bath: Try: Hape (46). Conversion: Little. Penalty goals: Little 2 (26, 73).
Scoring sequence (Northampton first): 3-0, 3-3, 8-3 (half-time), 8-10, 8-13, 15-13.
Northampton: B Foden; C Ashton, J Clarke, J Downey, J Ansbro; S Geraghty (rep: S Myler, 59), L Dickson; S Tonga’uiha, D Hartley, E Murray (rep: S Gonz?lez Bonorino, 60), C Lawes (rep: C Day, 65), J Kruger, P Dowson (rep: S Gray, 59), N Best, R Wilson.
Bath: N Abendanon; M Stephenson, M Carraro, S Hape, M Banahan (sent off, 66); N Little, M Claassens; D Flatman, L Mears, D Wilson (rep: D Bell, 60), D Grewcock (rep: P Short, 42), S Hooper, A Beattie, J Salvi, L Watson.
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Referee: D Rose.
Attendance: 13,101.