A 15-year-old Ewan Ashman made no secret of the depth of his despair after Scotland’s heart-breaking World Cup exit at the hands of Australia in 2015.
Back then he was playing colts rugby with Sandbach in the English Midlands – but he was already clear about where his rugby loyalties lay and had enjoyed attending two of Scotland’s pool matches with his Edinburgh-born father.
Eight years on, and the Canada-born 23-year-old has achieved his dream of wearing the thistle – seven times at senior level – and he is now one of four hookers vying for three seats on the plane to France for this Autumn’s World Cup.
And after Scotland’s flop in Japan four years ago, Ashman and his team-mates all feel they have a few wrongs over the last decade to put right.
“I think it was the last time I cried when we got beat in that quarter-final in 2015,” he recalls. “I wasn’t at that game, unfortunately, so I watched it on the telly at home, then locked myself in my bedroom for a few hours afterwards. That one is still sore.
“I went to a few of the earlier games with my dad. Went down to Gloucester for the Japan game and was the USA game in Leeds. It was class. Having those fond memories definitely makes you want to get there this time.”
Ashman’s all-action style has made him one of the most exciting prospects in the Scottish game, and he is working hard this summer to tighten-up his line-out throwing after some wayward darts cost Sale Sharks dearly during last season’s Premiership Final defeat to Saracens, with former England line-out coach Simon Hardy having been brought in as a consultant to help in this crucial area.
“We did a lot with John Dalziel [Scotland’s forwards coach] during the first training block of the summer and then with this block we’ve had Simon Hardy come in, who is a top throwing coach,” Ashman said. “The boys work with him at Edinburgh. It is a few years since I’ve done anything with him but he’s a real throwing guru. So, even after just a few days I can feel the difference, the throws are coming out nice and I’m really enjoying myself.
“I throw every day, so it’s definitely about repetition, but it is also about feeling the throws. It’s not thoughtless, you’re not just chucking it at a pole 15 times and not thinking about it. You are feeling it off your fingers, making sure you are constantly improving, watching footage and making sure you are not getting into bad habits – so there is probably more to it than people expect.”
Ashman will keep an eye on South Africa’s progress through the Rugby Championship and expects to learn some valuable lessons about how to tackle the Springboks ahead of Scotland’s World Cup opener in Marseille on September 10. But he stresses that there is no chance of him or his Scotland team-mates being intimidated by what they see.
“I’ll be watching the games, but I won’t be overthinking it,” he said. “They are a big physical team, as we all know, and I hope I get a chance to test myself against some of the best maulers and most confrontational players in the world.
“So, we’ll try to pick up what we can, but we realise it is a long way away and a lot of rugby to be played before then, so the main focus is just getting better every day.”
Ashman was speaking after Friday’s “open” training session at the Hive Stadium on the back pitches at Murrayfield. It might have been a PR event to mark the launch of Scotland’s strip for the 2023-24 season, but head coach Gregor Townsend did not let the player take it easy.
With Scotland’s first of four World Cup warm-up matches now only a fortnight away, every day is crucial, both in terms of preparing the squad as a collective, and in terms of allowing individual players to stake their claim for selection into the final group of 33 which will compete in France.
“The contact at the start of today’s session was the first time the coaches have said: ‘Right, tin-hats on, let’s go to work’,” Ashman said. “And it definitely feels like the games are around the corner now. A bit of bone-on-bone gets you a bit excited for it and makes it more real.”
Ashman will play for Edinburgh next season after his move north from Sale was announced in April, but he has not put any thought into that yet.
“I’m full-throttle with the rugby at the moment, and trying to keep buying property and moving house at the back of my mind, so I’m going to have a lot of admin to do whenever I get out of camp,” he said.
He is hoping that will be later rather than sooner.
