Ashton: It’s been a long road back to England

CHRIS Ashton was left with mixed emotions after grabbing a dream try on his long-awaited return to the England set-up but then seeing Sam Underhill’s try ruled out at the death.

The Sale wing took less than two minutes to mark his comeback to the Twickenham stage with a flying try before New Zealand finally scraped a controversial one-point win.

Ashton, 31, said: “It was very special. It was an emotional day and it has been quite a long journey to get back here. I wanted to embrace it as much as I could. A lot of my family were here, it was a proud moment.

“It’s always nice scoring a Twickenham try but it’s also a real disappointment with the result. I think we knew the game would have ups and downs and we also believed that the opportunity would come back our way and it did.

“We had to be in the moment at the time and unfortunately there were a couple of inches in it and on another day we might have got that decision.”

Ashton add: “It can go both ways easily. I don’t know where the offside line is there, it’s hard to see. There are so many bodies in there. Sometimes you get them, but today we didn’t.

“Underhill was outstanding, conditions were made for him and he did his job to the maximum. It’s a shame he didn’t get that try because he had such a great day.”

Underhill shrugged off his despair at having his late try cancelled out. “That was the TMO decision and I can’t change it,” he sai. “You just have to accept it and move on. It’s a shame but I thought the whole team was fantastic and we did not deserve to lose.We can build on this performance.”

All Blacks head coach Steve Hansen praised the “bravery” of the referee and TMO over the tough decision. He said: “There was no doubt he was offside. What was going through my mind was whether they were going to be brave enough to make the right decision. Fortunately they did.

“England were very good in a hostile environment but the boys stuck at it and managed to get back into it by half-time.”