Chris Ashton names his best/worst coaches and most annoying rival

Chris Ashton has revealed his top three career memories as a player, the opponent who annoyed him the most, and his best and worst coaches. The former England finisher hung up his boots at the end of the 2022/23 season, stepping away after helping Leicester Tigers win the 2022 Gallagher Premiership title and become the league’s record try-scorer.

Set to turn 38 next month, he has transitioned into a TV and radio pundit after hanging up his boots. Working ahead of this Saturday’s Calcutta Cup clash between England and Scotland for 10bet, he took some quick-fire questions from RugbyPass reflecting on his stellar career in union following his 2007 switch from rugby league.

“Top three career memories? Definitely winning first Premiership and first Champions Cups (with Saracens). Beating New Zealand at Twickenham in 2012 when they had been on the longest winning run (20). We weren’t given much of a hope but we managed to beat them.”

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Next up, Ashton’s toughest opponent, the player who needled him most. “I always had a bit of tiff with Ronan O’Gara when we faced each other. Munster were an amazing team then and even when he was with Ireland, when we were opposite each other we always had a bit of back and forth,” he said.

Mention of O’Gara, Ashton recalled being on the Thomond Park pitch with Northampton in November 2011 when the Irish out-half kicked a last-gasp match-winning drop goal after 41 phases. “I was there that day; you forget the four knock-ons that were in there,” he quipped.

Ashton played for seven different clubs during his 16-year spell in union, a service decorated by 44 Test caps with England. The coaches he encountered were numerous but who does he rate as his best and worst when reflecting on his time as a player?

“I did have plenty. The best was Mark McCall. Really good man-manager, he is in everything. Nothing goes by him. Just loves it. You think he has missed something and he doesn’t. Going back five, six, seven rucks, he would say, ‘You did this wrong’. It was on the other side of the pitch; how would he have even seen that? He just wouldn’t miss.

“He is just a rugby brain. Nice way about him too. Would never overreact. He would always have the right thing to say at the right time, so Mark McCall was great for me. Most difficult? Without a doubt, Eddie Jones. I didn’t know where I stood with him.

“You didn’t know what was going on on what day, didn’t know what was going to happen. Especially when you were wingers or back three, you have a different way about you. You have confidence, you want to feel backed, you want to feel like you know your place, where you belong. None of that was Eddie. You hadn’t a clue where you were with Eddie.”

Given that dubious experience with Jones as his England coach, does Ashton now regret leaving France after a sensational 2017/18 try-scoring season at Toulon to come back and join Sale and compete for Test squad selection for the 2019 Rugby World Cup? This ambition led to five caps but ultimately no trip to the finals in Japan.

“An interesting question. No, because I still wanted to go to the World Cup. I wanted to get back into the England team and wanted to go to the World Cup. I wasn’t to know when I finally got into the camp and into it how everything was going to be, so if I hadn’t come back I wouldn’t have found that out and I would still have been in France going, ‘I should have come back’.

“It sits a bit easier that I did come back and can now go, ‘Actually, Eddie is really hard work and I can’t go through with it’. That is very different from me sitting in France going woulda, coulda, shoulda.”