Defeat of Clermont in European Champions Cup owed as much to team ethos as individual flair – Mark McCall’s side pulled together when going got tough
Chris Ashton stumbled slightly when he was asked why he was leaving Saracens for Toulon at the end of the season. The most direct of runners took a circuitous route as he pondered the answer to a question which was inviting him to explain why he was swapping the dominant club in Europe for the one they had supplanted and which was on its third head coach of the campaign.
Ashton, like David Strettle two years ago, is not so much leaving Saracens as England, frustrated at his international isolation and two long bans in the past 18 months, although the first came after a Champions Cup match against Ulster. Other established squad members will not be playing for the club next season, but Neil de Kock, Petrus du Plessis, Jim Hamilton and Kelly Brown are retiring. Few leave for another club voluntarily.
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