Defectors have ample ability to crack the other code

Hape and Ashton are pure rugby league products but have skills to thrive in union

English rugby league has good reason for believing itself to be chronically short of quality outside backs. It might be forgiven today for seeing itself as slightly less desperate for them as English rugby union.

Shontayne Hape and Chris Ashton are both pure rugby league products. Hape also happens to be as Kiwi as a haka. He is, however, only following in the footsteps of his former Bradford Bulls wing partner, Lesley Vainikolo, in qualifying by residency for England RU while playing league.

By now, England could have picked him to play rugby league, despite his previous New Zealand caps. They have already established a precedent by picking the Samoan, Maurie Fa'asavalu, for the 2008 World Cup, and the RFL's chief executive, Nigel Wood, said yesterday that there was nothing to stop them doing something similar again.

There is no great surprise over Hape being picked. His ability to slip a late pass to his winger, as he did so effectively for Vainikolo at Bradford, might be rare in league, but it appears to be virtually unknown in union – which is why they tried to make a centre out of Andy Farrell, after he had finished his league career hobbling through games at prop.

Ashton is a different case. A raw novice when he switched codes two seasons ago, he grew impatient for bigger paydays than a club like Wigan, hidebound by salary cap restrictions, could or would provide.

He is not the tip of a threatening iceberg of defections, more a case of a player, like his Northampton team-mate, Stephen Myler, who is actually better suited to union than league.

A year from now, the latest to swap codes, Leeds' Lee Smith, could have made as rapid progress as Ashton. To keep his loss in proportion, however, it is worth remembering how ruthlessly his defence was exposed in the last Four Nations. League cynics will say that such deficiencies will not necessarily hold him back in union, any more than they have Ashton.