I am no watcher of Union so no idea how he's developing there, but must admit saw his trys today on the news highlights and with the recent performance of England backs in the 4 Nations, must admit I found myself thinking, "what if".

That said, those comments above about ego and arrogance are properly right, but then, we need a little of that if we're ever to produce a team capable of beating the Aussies!

Sh1thouse, hope he he is exposed in Union and ends up playing for Swinton next year.

Please explain what you mean by being exposed?

We've not missed him. Glad he put the boot in to the Aussies though.

I find myself falling asleep watching Union, but of course I'd support England at Tiddlywinks, especially over the Australians.

I honestly think that if Ashton would have been playing for us last season he'd have broken SL try scoring records with ease.

You only have to look at what a good player like Gouldind did to realise a guy with as much talent, pace and an eye for the try line as what Ashton has would mean he'd be a superstar.

Sadly I feel I agree with most of his points. Another terrible mess from RL management.
Ashton was a top RL talent with all the talent in the world to become a great RL back.

He was a young Wigan lad who wanted to play for his boyhood club, if management would have dealt with the situation better right now he would be progressing at Wigan as either a FB, wing or centre. What a terrible loss.

So who's to blame? For me, not Ashton. The season he left he was arguably our best player. I can remember the big money signing of Fielden and Dobson, for me it was them 3 who kept us up. Fielden was rewarded with megabucks, Ashton, still now only 23 was overlooked by poor management and a deal wasn't created for him to want to stay.

Additionally I now think it's high time to English RL put something in to the salary cap to protect young up and coming English players.
A different ruling for such players who allow them to earn more money so they won't be forced out to end up in RU.
That would benefit RL, we'd have a better chance of beating NZ and Aus, we'd build a better reputation as a sport. And not lose good players to RU.

Ashton is right, under present leadership RL will never change. the 80k watching Eng v Aus is far superior to what our England team generate.

As a produce RL is by far the better code. faster, more physical and entertaining. It's about time it was managed with the intelligence it deserves.

I have just seen the hightlights and to be fair brilliant try, But i still dont agree how he treated the club and the fans, in March 2007 it was announced that Ashton had signed to play rugby union for Northampton. Yes the money is better and there is more media coverage of union then league. But the think that annoyed me about Chris was the comittment he gave us, when he signed his attiude and playing changed, it was like he didnt care and his head was thinking of £££ signs instead of helping the team that got him to where he is now. And the fact that he has never said sorry to us, But i agree with this saying NO PLAYER IS BIGGER THAN THE CLUB no matter who it is.

Its funny how he gets bagged but the likes of Robinson, Farrell and Inga didnt do wrong be leaving. He went for money and who can blame him, its a tough job and you need to get what you can out of it as its a short career.

It's not that simple.

As the article alludes to, he wasn't treated well by Lindsay.

I worked with his Uncle for a few years (in fact my first post on here was saying that Ashton had signed a new contract), and they weren't very complimentary as to how the club behaved.

Union is much bigger because it's in the universities. You can't compete with that, even though your product is infinitely better.

As for Ashton himself - much like Ainscough, he couldn't defend for toffee. You can get away with that in union apparently.

Bit unfair, he was a centre asked to play at fullback.