Parting is the best for Ash and Saints
So, the news is finally out, Chris Ashton has announced that he is quitting Saints to ply his trade for Aviva Premiership rivals and reigning champions Saracens next season.
It’s fair to say his departure from Franklin’s Gardens isn’t likely to be the most amicable in the club’s long history, with supporters reacting with indifference at best, and animosity at worst to the player’s announcement on Twitter yesterday that he is on his way.
The England winger has been getting plenty of criticism for deciding to quit the Gardens, with plenty of sniping about him just leaving for the money and getting too big for his boots, with some fans even stating that he isn’t that good anyway. That’s a bit harsh on a player that has scored a remarkable 90 tries in 106 appearances for Saints, and was also his country’s leading try-scorer with six at the World Cup in the autumn.
Ashton is an exciting rugby talent, he has world-class ability (look at his international record), he is approaching his prime, and has obviously decided to maximise his income at a time when he is one of the sport’s hottest properties.
He can’t be blamed for that, but I still would have liked him to have shown the club that has developed him a bit more loyalty.
But who shows loyalty in top level sport nowadays? Especially as money talks louder than ever.
It is also true that Saints can’t be blamed for refusing to match the offer of a reported £250,000 per year in wages that has been put on the table by Saracens.
Saints strictly adhere to the Premiership’s wage cap, and if they feel their money is better spent elsewhere than on Ashton, that is their choice.
They also clearly feel that in Jamie Elliott they have a young winger more than capable of filling Ashton’s boots – and he won’t miss half of the season on England duty (at least not for the next couple of years anyway...).
So overall, it seems both Ashton and Saints can move forward happy with their lot and satisfied with the decisions made.
And both parties can hopefully now concentrate on making the rest of this season a successful one for Saints.
Fair play to Saints for selling 22,000 tickets for their Heineken Cup pool clash with Munster at stadiummk in Milton Keynes tomorrow.
The match is a sell-out, and chairman Leon Barwell, chief executive Allan Robson and the commercial team will be beaming from ear-to-ear at a job well done.
They decided that switching the match down the M1 would allow more people to attend than would be able at the 13,500 capacity Franklin’s Gardens, and they have been proved to be right.
But I still don’t agree with the decision, and I think moving the fixture to a different county has deprived the town of Northampton of what would have been a spectacular sporting occasion.
Top-class international sporting events don’t hit this town too often, and that is exactly what a European Cup game against the giants of Munster is.
So I accept that the club will make money, I accept that an extra 8,500 people will get to see the match live, and I accept that the club decision has been justified.
But that doesn’t mean what the Saints have done was right, and I hope it is something they never do again.
The club is Northampton Saints, and – barring competition rules and extenuating circumstances - that is where they should play, in Northampton.
Talking of Milton Keynes, the Dons chairman Pete Winkelman is somebody that takes plenty of stick, somebody that attracts plenty of ridicule and somebody who, outside the unfinished confines of stadiummk, is not particularly popular.
But his reaction to the late postponement of the MK Dons’ npower League One clash with Carlisle United last Saturday was a breath of fresh air, and a lesson in public relations for every football chairman up and down the country.
Dons were forced to call their game off against Carlisle just 75 minutes before kick-off, with a frozen patch of the pitch making it unplayable.
Now it would have been easy for Dons to just shrug their shoulders, say sorry to the travelling Carlisle fans (as well as their own) and blame the freezing conditions.
But the area of the pitch that was frozen hadn’t been covered overnight, and Winkelman immediately took full responsibility for a club error that he felt could have been avoided.
Indeed, he said he was ‘embarrassed’, a feeling no doubt exacerbated by the fact that the game was the only one in the Football League to be postponed last Saturday.
He was so embarrassed that the Carlisle fans that had made the 500-mile round trip were treated to a free hot meal in the stadiummk restaurant before they travelled back, and then Winkelman announced that every fan that had travelled from Cumbria would get a free ticket for the rescheduled game.
Not only that, they would get a free ticket for a friend as well.
And not only that, the Dons would provide free coach travel for the fans and their friends to travel to the game whenever it was played. It was a great gesture from Winkelman, and, no matter what you think of him, one that should be applauded.
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