Chris Ashton will hope to make history next Friday when the Gallagher Premiership restarts with a game between his current club Harlequins and former employers Sale Sharks.
Twelve players have scored for two different clubs in the same Premiership season before but never on debut against the club they’ve left in-season.
European rugby’s most prolific try-scorer is used to catching the eye and defying the odds though, having scored with his very first touch in rugby union.
Since dotting down for Northampton against London Welsh in the old National One – his first match after crossing codes – the 33-year-old has never looked back, amassing 86 tries in 145 Premiership games on top of his return of 20 in 44 tests for England.
The Wiganer also holds the record for most tries in an individual Top 14 season, when he was at Toulon, and the overall Heineken Cup record.
Ashton is used to making a splash, and creating history, but will he be overshadowed by Marland Yarde, who moved in the opposite direction, mid-season, back in 2017, and is super-charged and raring to go.
It promises to be one of many fascinating match-ups in Premiership rugby’s first game back from the enforced break due to Covid-19,
Two clubs, same season: Premiership try-scorers
- 1997/98 Chris Sheasby, Jon Sleightholme
- 1998/99 Tom Beim
- 2000/01 Rob Jewell, Peter Massey, John Leslie
- 2002/03 Andy Kershaw
- 2003/04 Andy Goode, Robbie Kydd
- 2004/05 Paul Sackey
- 2008/09 Willie Walker
- 2017/18 Marland Yarde
*stats supplied by Stuart Farmer Media Services
