and the fact that farrell gave everything he had and more for wigan over a sustained period may be another reason why ashton should not be mentioned in the same breath as faz

and I hate using smilies. This has got to go down as the most dumb post of 2010 so far. The reasons shouldnt need explaining. A quite frankly offensive post!!

one positive spin on this, ive just been watching sky sports news and they are describing ashton as the best winger in the premiership. Despite what he did, it shows the world what talent we produce in rugby league and in particular what talent wigan produce. The rfl just need to do something to compete with rugby union in promoting the game and ensuring the clubs have the financial power to keep these youngsters from being lurred away from all the wonga ra ra can throw at them.

Unfortunately that's a vain hope.

The RFL weren't interested in preventing quality players leaving RL for RU when Jason Robinson did it, when Henry Paul did it, when Faz did it, when Ashton did it, and I see no reason why they'd be interested in preventing it in the future.

On a similar subject, here's a potential downside to Ashton making a big success of his RU career. Might it help those cashed-up, ginned-up RU chairman to forget the bad experience they had with Pryce and Walker, and maybe think: "Wow, RL is producing quality kids again. Let's have a look at a few more of them."

In addition to that is he had an agent looking after his interests and the agent should have steered him clear of that. But then again maybe the agent was all for it!

Wasn't his agent one of the Clarke family?

Dave

well done chris.

the guy has got the rugby x factor - superb pace and support play, great in broken field. his defence was lacking but i for one wish he still played at wigan.

Hi Chris how's life in Northampton? Judas

£140,000 a year was mentioned by Maurice when he was trying to think of an excuse of Ashton leaving, the Northampton chairman said it was near that figure based on bonus's and England call ups etc.

rlhttp://www.lep.co.uk/rugby/Ashton-wages-under-spotlight.2183993.jprl

So he went for £60,000 a year? Could have earned that easy in league, so he was on around £20,000 max a year before he went, Wigan would have offered him around the £60,000 and the number 1 shirt and he binned us off posing in the Norhampton shirt before it was announced the scum bag, he shat on this club from a great height.

Would I still like him to be playing for us? Yes

Would I have him back? Not a chance!


To mention him in the same breath as Robinson and Farrell are laughable after both had won everything in league and needed a fresh challenge and pay day, Ashton went at the first opurtunity and did it in a bad way.

Hope he breaks his leg in the warm up and is loses his speed and ends up playing for Swinton.

As I said at the beginning though the shirt thing was a naive move but a young lad of 20 has just signed a significantly worthwhile contract, much more than before and obviously Northampton would of pushed for him to pose with the shirt to "show off" the signing and boost publicity of the club who at the time were struggling, unlike now. Northampton didn't care about if this wasn't professional and respectful to us, maybe Ashton should of thought but hes a young excited lad, probabaly chuffed to bits. I think his agent, (think this might be Phil Clarke if im not mistaken?) should of stepped in and warned him that this wasn't a good move to pose with the shirt and maybe other more experienced people around him eg. family, friends should of been more thoughtful.

To leave for the money was fair enough and Mo's stupid fault for not extending his contract sooner and having the whole finances so messed up that they couldn't have done so.
To pose in the shirt was stupid. His agent is a two faced **** though so no surprise there.
The thing that annoyed me about it all though was the fact that he whinged like a child when fans were p****d off about it and then wriggled out of the remainder of his contract. I don't want players like that at Wigan, I want players who have some concept of loyalty and pride.

I couldn't care less what he's doing in union, its a tedious pile of poo.

That's fair enough

I can still see him running in the opposite direction when Richard Moore broke through at Wakefield and he was one on one with him. He has all the attributes to be a success at Union - bags of pace and an ability to know when and where to back up. However, he appeared to have a heart the size of a pea and his defence was woeful (particularly front on - close to his own line). Good luck to him, but I don't really care what he does.

I love these "Rugby league produces far superior players and thats why RU want them" threads.

Pretty much every British player who has gone to union has failed by a long way with the exception of Chris Ashton. I dont care about Henry Paul winning club man of the year and Pan face getting his token england cap due to the amount of money they paid for him

You know why? British rugby league players are way behind their union counterparts in terms of the necessary skill sets for backs.

This aint 1994 anymore

Farrell would have played more for England but for injury, the England coaches knew that because as soon as he was fit enough he was in there and defence captain etc etc.

Farrell would have made it had his body not just already have been shot when he made the move.

So are they after Eastmond because he's crap?

Ignoring the two England rugby union internationals you've mentioned, what about Jason Robinson? He did ok didn't he?
Shontayne Hape is doing well and recently got a call up to the England squad. Lesley Vainikolo has impressed at Gloucester and has played for England.
Brian Carney, Chev Walker, Iestyn Harris even BJ Mather won international honours after making the switch.