With not much more than ‘Bonjour’ in his locker, released Bristol Bears prop Ashley Challenger is heading off on the adventure of a lifetime next season after taking up a contract in the third tier of French professional rugby.
Bristolian Challenger was one of those players caught out by the Bears’ administration snafu in the Spring which saw the club miss an important deadline to turn down otherwise automatic contract renewals. The impact of the error was it reduced director of rugby Pat Lam’s abilities to pick and choose which players stayed and which left the club as he had to make changes to his plans for the squad to stay within the Premiership’s salary cap rules next season.
Challenger, explains: “It backlashed on me a little bit because I couldn’t have the plus one of my one year, plus one deal. But it could be a blessing in disguise because I can go out and get that regular rugby.
“I am joining a club in Fed 1, being told the situation so late in the day most deals had been done, but I found a club in Fed 1 and will be playing there for a year.”
With Challenger's official unveiling yet to happen across the Channel the prop, who can play both sides of the scrum, was unable to reveal exactly where he will be spending the next season but said it is going to be a stark culture shock. “I still live at home with my mum and dad. Moving out, especially over there is going to be massive for me, it is going to be such a lifestyle change.
“It is going to be hard, but is a different style of rugby and I am looking forward to it.”
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As for the situation at Bears, there are certainly no hard feelings from Challenger who accepts that is the reality of professional sport and says he has been living his childhood dreams this season as a fully professional player for his hometown club, having come through the youth ranks at Avonmouth RFC, before spells playing for Weston-Super-Mare side Hornets RFC, SGS Filton, Dings Crusaders and Championship side Hartpury.
He said: “It was such a magical time being at the Bears.”
Local rugby connections across the Bristol Combination helped Challenger to get his foot in the door at the Bears, with first-team skills coach Sean Marsden and forwards coach Mark Irish having previously spent time coaching the Avonmouth senior men's side. Challenger recalls how he used to sneak in to train with the Avonmouth first team as a 16-year-old to gain experience while they were coaching.
In the Autumn of 2021, the Bears were in need of additional props in training and came calling. “First off I went there to help them out just for a day,” Challenger recalls.
“I did a bit of scrummaging with them and Pat came over to me and offered me a four week trial and after a couple of weeks I was waking up to go to training and it just didn’t seem real.
“It was just a dream come true.
“It is hard to put into words how I felt to be honest because I didn’t think I would get this chance so quickly, I hoped it might be later on, but to be there and play for a year was just wicked.”
Challenger made his debut in the Premiership Cup on November 13, featuring from the replacements bench in a 33-27 victory over Exeter Chiefs at Sandy Park.
He went on to make four appearances in the Premiership off the bench, including scoring a try on his league debut in February.
Challenger recalls: “I scored a try against London Irish on debut in the Prem, in front of a home crowd. We were losing but I have never celebrated so hard in my life after that. That was one of the best moments of the season for me, to be able to score at Ashton Gate.
“It was such a magical time being there, being able to play in front of everyone and seeing faces and locals I haven’t seen for so many years there around the pitch in the stands after the games with old teachers, coaches and teammates coming up to me.”
Before living his dream as a professional rugby player, Shirehampton-born and bred Challenger was juggling his rugby alongside work trying to make a difference in some of Bristol’s tougher communities, trying to keep young people on the straight and narrow amongst a dizzying world of temptations and downfalls.
“Working don’t work out for me,” Challenge joked. “I have had quite a few jobs, working in a pub to a car tire warehouse in Portbury.
“I found a job I was doing for nearly three years working with kids who have a hard home life, or expelled from school and can’t go back and are in gangs and things like that.
“I enjoyed it because growing up that was what it was like around here. I have had friends who have gone down the wrong path and once you have seen it you just don’t want other kids to go down that path.
“It was a pleasing job because you are getting them away from those negative distractions, making sure they knuckle down and get the grades and focus so they can go to college and get into work.”
While Challenger said working doesn’t work out for him, he had no problem stepping into the elite, professional environment at Bristol’s £11.5m High Performance Centre in Failand.
He said: “Being an outsider it can be totally different to what you think it is like.
“You can have massive ups and then massive downs, but anything in life is like that.
“It is a tough environment because you have got to prove yourself, especially me having not been in an academy; I have had to go out and work. To go from the work I was doing to rugby being my job was a massive change for me but I knew it was something I wanted to do the whole time.
“While I was at college and after I left college, I always knew I wanted to do this and I took to it well. I loved every bit of it.”
Challenger certainly couldn’t ask for much better players to train with on a daily basis, with Bristol’s tighthead stocks last season including former All Black World Cup winner John Afoa and British and Irish Lion Kyle Sinckler, while loose heads Yann Thomas and Jake Woolmore imparted their extensive experience as well.
“It is a really tough step up, especially for someone in my position,” Challenger admitted. “As you mature as a player and a person you get that experience but you also need to be playing week in, week out to get the competitive experience.
“But being able to train alongside some big names and get their advice throughout the day, every day, really helps you grow as a person and a player, the likes of [Kyle] Sinckler and Jonny [Afoa], two experienced props. You couldn’t get anything better to be feeding off them.”
While Challenger and his fiancée will be heading to France this summer with a warning to not overindulge on the croissants and pain au chocolat, the 26-year-old has his sites set on returning to England a better player.
“I 100 percent want to come back and play in the Premiership - it is such a good league to play in. Now I have had that taste it just fuels the fire a lot more. I want to go away now, get some new experiences and the game time I didn’t have last season and then just push on.
"It might be in a year’s time, it might in four or five years' time, as long as I get back.”
With props generally regarded as reaching their peak in their late 20s time is certainly on Challenger's side but for now it is au revoir and bon voyage to one of Bristol's own.
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