Mark McCall: Delighted with Sarries' fine start
Saracens boss Mark McCall hailed Chris Ashton's effort after the England wing scored two tries in Saturday's 40-3 win over London Irish at Twickenham.
Ashton had an eventful debut bouncing back from a 10 minute stint in the sin bin during the first half before scoring his brace which helped his team claim a bonu-point victory.
"He brings something different, he's never far away from where the action is, particularly when we've got the ball," said McCall.
"He pops up in unusual positions, which is exactly what we wanted. We are hoping he will take our attacking game forward.
"He played really well today and a lot of the others did too."
The former Northampton star received his marching orders for a late challenge on Exiles fly-half Steve Shingler and although he disagreed with referee Wayne Barnes decision to send him off his coach feels it was a correct call by the official.
"It wasn't his finest hour," said McCall.
"He didn't use his arms in the tackle. It was an indisciplined thing to have done and I've no complaints about the decision."
Mcall expressed his delight with his team's fine start to the season.
"In the first half we played a little bit within ourselves. We had some opportunities which we kicked away.
"We needed to up the tempo in the second half and I thought we did that very well."
London Irish's director of rugby Brian Smith was surprised that his side were not more competitive.
"It was a tough afternoon, particularly disappointing for us," he said.
"We came into the season off a very solid win down in Cork so we came into this in a good space. Our preparation was very good.
"We probably needed to pick up all the points on offer in the first half and stay in touch. We didn't do that so when we conceded the first try it was a big margin.
"That hurt us a little bit and put us under a lot of pressure.
"We're disappointed but we accept and understand that's the price you pay when you're trying to build things and get better.
"We have a week to put things right before our first league game. We're a very young group and we're just getting used to each other."
Comments
craigsman says...
There you go, to all the CA haters, who says he only scored because of Foden, that he couldn't create anything and that he wouldn't get the ball at Saracens. He was involved in scoring half of Sarries 40 points. This comments section is unsurprisingly quiet.
Posted 17:14 03rd September 2012