LONG READ Chris Ashton: 'There's a lot of firepower out there but wings are not the highest-paid group. I wouldn’t have stood for it.'

Chris Ashton is not happy. He thinks the Premiership’s wings – the competition’s razzle-dazzle men – are being shortchanged. As a former wing of international distinction himself, Ashton is miffed that the finishers and the fliers command the second-lowest salaries of any position in the league.

Only the poor, downtrodden scrum-half earns less according to the most recent Premiership salary cap report which Ashton, the league’s record try scorer, cannot understand.

It is not merely about the buzz they bring to a team, he points out, but the bankable benefits. Sides have simply got their sums wrong.

“There is a lot of firepower out there but they’re not necessarily the highest-paid group at the minute which is disappointing for me. I wouldn’t have stood for it at all. I’ll tell you that much,” said Ashton.

“The way the teams are playing with more phases, keeping hold of the ball, you need people who are going to break the game open and do something that you can’t necessarily coach or teach. You need players like Bielle-Barrey and Penaud, Freeman, Feyi-Waboso and Ibitoye. All these players are game breakers and they’ll do something that not everybody can do.

“Yes, there’s the odd walk-in try, don’t get wrong, but there’s also tries that no-one else on the pitch could score. If you haven’t got these sorts of players, you’re going to have less chance of scoring tries. And if you’re scoring fewer tries you’ve got less chance of winning.”

The wing’s role is constantly evolving – the clampdown on high-ball shielding this season has increased the emphasis on their ability in the air.

The trend away from an out-and-out blitz has meant there is, on the whole, more defending to be done out wide. What remains timeless, however, is the wing’s value as a match winner. That was Ashton in a nutshell, the only man to reach three figures as a try scorer in the Premiership.

“That was my part to play. If I didn’t score tries for my team, I wasn’t doing my job,” he said.

Tries were his calling card and his currency and he remains fiercely protective of his rank as the league’s record holder. When his nearest active rival in the charts, Christian Wade, signed for Gloucester in the summer and scored a hat-trick in the second game of the season it looked like his status might be under threat. Not yet it isn’t. The 33-year-old, who hasn’t scored in the league since October, is still 15 behind.

As a Wigan rugby league convert, Ashton collected his tries by the tanker load as a tracker winger who followed the support-line trail like a bloodhound, took the pass then blew away his pursuers with his pace. If the number on his back had reflected where he was on the field, it would have been constantly changing.

With the instinct and energy he had, his approach brought tangible benefits to all the clubs he played for – and there were plenty of them. There has to be a balance, though, he thinks when it comes to wide men.

“I was a roaming winger,” he said. “But you can’t have two roaming wingers in a team because you’ll never have anyone on the wing.

“Wingers need to complement each other. If you look at France, they have Penaud fulfilling that roaming role and Bielle-Barrey, who is more of a fixed winger, fast up and down that touchline.

“Ideally, I’d say you need one big winger that can give you an extra ball carrier and one fast, fit roaming winger.

“I remember my time at Leicester with Nemani Nadolo. That worked perfectly because he would do the hard carrying in the middle and I would do the running around and the finishing off the back of it.”

He thinks England have struck on a good blend with the duet they employed most regularly in the Six Nations – Tommy Freeman and Ollie Sleightholme.

“Freeman’s a big winger. He’ll come and he’ll carry for you and he’ll do that bit whereas Sleightholme will finish,” said Ashton.

Unfortunately Sleightholme, the Premiership’s top try scorer last season, is currently rehabilitating an ankle injury sustained on England duty which temporarily deprives Northampton of that dangerous double act.

“That’s sad but they’ve got Tom Seabrook performing a similar role,” said Ashton.

“Sale are another pretty good example of that sort of combination as well with Tom Roebuck and Arron Reed or Tom O’Flaherty – although, in my view, Roebuck could do more carrying. Sale should look to get him in more, especially off lineout and set-piece because he’s strong. We saw his try against Wales – he can get through contact – which leaves Reed to do the fast stuff.”

There are plenty of wings in the Premiership around at the moment who excite Ashton. The one he has enjoyed watching most this season though is Bristol’s Gabby Ibitoye whose flying start to the season earned him an England A call-up against Australia in the autumn.

A hamstring injury at the start of January, followed by a calf injury has restricted Ibitoye’s appearances since but Bristol hope to have him back in mid-April for the run-in.

“Some of the stuff Bristol have played has been incredible, especially attack-wise, and Ibitoye has been in the middle of all that. Just the way he moves is something that we don’t see very often,” said Ashton.

“I’m sure when he’s ready to get back he will want to remind everybody what he’s about because of the season he’s had. I’m really looking forward to seeing him back out there.”

He also name-checks Bath powerhouse Joe Cokanasiga who has been just as important to the Premiership leaders in his contrasting way. The Premiership table suggests there is every chance of Cokanasiga and Ibitoye lining up on opposite sides at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium in June. Ashton does not disagree. His wish is that when it comes to the final, we are left talking about one of his breed afterwards.

Bielle-Barrey was the star of the Six Nations; Ashton wants the Premiership to be a wing story too.

“I’d like to think it will be,” said Ashton. “Finals are always a hard one. They’re normally close, cagey affairs because nobody wants to be the guy that tried something and it didn’t come off and cost his team. But the way Bath and Bristol have been playing this season – they have been the best two teams by a mile so far. You’ve got to think that a winger’s got to come out of those two teams with something special. They’ve definitely got the players to do it.”

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