Former England wing Chris Ashton on Saturday scored a try on his comeback after a long suspension for biting as he helped English Premiership champions Saracens to a 21-6 victory over Newcastle.
Saracens top the table on 42 points, level with Wasps, whose prolific wing Christian Wade scored a hat-trick of tries — taking his tally for the year to 18 — in a crowd-pleasing 40-26 win over third-placed Bath.
Exeter went fourth with an impressive 31-10 win over Leicester, former Tigers No. 8 Thomas Waldrom showing no room for sentiment against his old club by scoring a brace of tries to take his tally to eight for the season.
Ashton, who is to leave for French club Toulon at the end of the season, came on in the second half and the 29-year-old ensured he left his mark after the 13-week suspension with a try against struggling Newcastle.
“It is good to have Chris [Ashton] back in the team and scoring tries,” Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall said. “It wasn’t the best game for him to come back for, but he got his name on the score sheet.”
“His attitude in training has been fine. He’s been waiting for this chance to play again and now he’s keen to get a couple of starts,” he added said.
“We now just want to see more of what he’s given the club over the last four years,” the 49-year-old former Ireland international center said.
Saracens might have made heavy weather of beating one of the strugglers, but Wasps and Leicester turned on the style for the heavyweight clash as second took on third.
A superb no-holds-barred game saw eight tries scored and the win ensured Wasps ended the year unbeaten at home in 18 matches.
However, while the spectators might have been delighted at getting value for money, Wasps director of rugby Dai Young could not quite get into the Christmas spirit.
“It was obviously a really tough game, as you expect with it being second against third,” he said. “We showed some fantastic stuff in attack I thought, some real cutting-edge stuff with great support play, but to be totally honest, I thought we lacked some energy in defense, especially first half.”
“We looked like a team that was on the back of two very tough European games then a six-day turn round,” the 49-year-old former Wales prop added.
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