‘Underrated’ Chris Ashton sends a reminder to England coach Eddie Jones

Saracens chief Mark McCall is backing “brilliant” Chris Ashton to force his way into Eddie Jones’s first England squad after helping the club become the form team in Europe.

Sarries defeated Oyonnax 55-13 on Saturday to take their unbeaten run to 10 matches in all competitions this season with Ashton grabbing a hat‑trick in an eight-try European Champions Cup triumph.

Ashton won the last of his 39 caps against New Zealand 18 months ago with former England head coach Stuart Lancaster deciding he could do without the wing for the World Cup.

The 28-year-old’s performance against Oyonnax reminded Jones of his predatory nature as the Australian weighs up his options for his first squad for the Six Nations clash against Scotland on February 6.

And McCall is confident that his man will get a fair hearing under the new regime.

“Chris has had to deal with the setback of not getting picked internationally but he’s been brilliant,” said Saracens’ director of rugby. “A lot of people concentrate on what Chris is not good at. At our club we concentrate on what he’s good at and he’s good at a lot of things. He’s underrated, his skill set is much higher than most people think and the little things he needed to improve, he’s improved massively. He’s been playing well for a while.”

On Sunday, the Premiership leaders take their unbeaten record to Wasps, who also showed their strength in the Champions Cup on Saturday. A week after losing by just two points at home to Bath, Wasps defeated the west country side 36-10 at The Rec and they will relish the chance to knock over the defending champions.

McCall said: “We’ve got a tough run of fixtures coming up in the Aviva Premiership. We have Wasps away and Leicester at home, and a visit to Harlequins before we play Ulster and Toulouse. Those are five fixtures we can really look forward to.

“Things have been going well, and the last four games we’ve played we’ve run in a lot of tries, but we know what makes our club tick, and what we need to get in place against teams like Leicester, Harlequins. We’ll be working hard on these things over the next couple of weeks.”