Six Nations: England coach Eddie Jones ‘disappointed’ as Chris Ashton gets 10-game ban for gouging

Chris Ashton will miss the Six Nations after being banned for 10 weeks for eye-gouging. And his England coach, Eddie Jones, while being sympathetic, has told the winger he has to take “100 per cent” responsibility for his actions.

Ashton, who had been called into Jones’ first England squad last week, having last won a cap in 2014, was found guilty by an independent disciplinary panel of making contact with the eyes of centre Luke Marshall while playing for Saracens against Ulster in a European Champions Cup game last weekend.

Saracens have 72 hours to appeal against the ban, and given coach Mark McCall’s hope earlier this week that “fairness will win through”, it is highly likely they will. But, as things stand, Ashton is out. Which, Jones said, is good news for any player he will bring in, but bad for Ashton.

“I am disappointed for him,” said Jones, who was speaking at an RFU initiative to get more children playing rugby. “He is a member of our squad who is now out, but he has got to take responsibility for it. Is the suspension too hard? No, because that is the suspension he has got and he has to sit it out – or appeal. It is terrible luck for Chris, but he has been punished. We just have to find a replacement, which we will do. I know how well he has been playing, he is one of the form players in the Premiership, so it is disappointing for him and for the team.”

The entry point for bans for eye-gouging is 12 weeks, but the disciplinary panel added one week as a deterrent, before taking off three when taking into account Ashton’s character and good conduct at the hearing.

Jones, who described the incident itself and whether the length of the ban is justified as “none of my business”, added that Ashton would be missed from the England set-up, saying: “He has a real sniff for the tryline and that is a skill in itself.” The coach will hold off on bringing in a replacement, widely mooted to be the Fijian-born Bath player Semesa Rokoduguni, until he hears whether Saracens appeal.

“It is a setback for Chris and it is up to him how hard he fights back now,” Jones said. “He has to serve his time, come back, make sure he looks after his fitness, his speed, and that he comes back in good fettle... and then he can fight for selection again.”

England meet on Sunday, barring those involved in Leicester’s match against Stade Français that afternoon, at Pennyhill Park for a pre-Six Nations training camp and the 33-man squad will be whittled down to 23 on Tuesday. By then, the identity of Jones’ captain will be known, too.

Jones insists that he will not be giving a grand address to the squad in their first meeting under the new coach – and the first since the World Cup – but said he would talk to the players about “clear things we need to address within the team of what we need to do and how we are going to play. We’ll have a small chat about where we need to go, then get on with it. We’re there to do, not to talk.”

There will also be two more people on the coaching staff for next week’s training drills: the World Cup-winning England fly-half Jonny Wilkinson and the Australian flanker, currently at Wasps, George Smith. The pair will be there on a “very flexible” basis, according to Jones – there has been no formal RFU approach and the pair will not even be paid for their time. But the England head coach did admit that he was still short of bodies to fill tracksuits as Six Nations preparation heads into high gear.

Even so, he is reluctant to pluck any coaching talent from the Premiership, lest he starts a club v country Third World War, after the hassles that ensued over the recruitment of Steve Borthwick from Bristol and Paul Gustard from Saracens.

“When I started on 4 December, every coach had a job,” Jones added. “We have pulled two blokes out of clubs and it has been like a nuclear bomb has gone off. We can’t afford any more hydrogen bombs – otherwise we will be in North Korea territory. So we have to work with this staff now. I am asking favours of people, we’ll get through, then by the summer tour we will have a full-blown coaching staff.

“George will definitely come in next week and help the back-rowers, but it is very informal. He is doing it out of friendship. He’s a lovely guy, I’ll have to buy him a few beers down the track, but apart from that he is doing it for free.”

One player not joining the party, of course, is Tom Youngs and Richard Cockerill, his coach at Leicester, has expressed his surprise at the hooker’s omission from Jones’ squad.

“I was flabbergasted – and so was he [Youngs], to be fair,” Cockerill said. “When he told me that he hadn’t received a phone call about being in the squad, I told him he’d be the last to hear because they’d be making him captain.

“When he did hear, he wasn’t in it at all! He’s hurt, naturally. It would be impossible for him not to feel hurt because he’s a human being like the rest of us. But he’ll get on with it because that’s what he does.”

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