Christian Wade almost broke social media when he scored a 65-yard touchdown on his very first carry in the NFL.
“All the way from England to the house!” screamed the commentator as the 5’9″ rugby wing with no experience of American football tore through the opposition on his debut for the Buffalo Bills.
It was a jaw-dropping moment. “Look at Wade go. Unbelievable!” the announcer continued. “Showing the ability that made him an international rugby superstar.”
Only, strictly speaking, Wade was not a superstar of “international” rugby.
Then, as now, he had one England cap to his name. 80 minutes of representing his country to show for a talent so rich it has taken him to the elite level of two sports – and, very soon, to a third.
Twickenham clash
Rugby league-bound Wade is at Twickenham with Gloucester this weekend, where he will be greeted by the ghosts of seasons past – and what might have been.
It is the stage he first graced as a 17-year old in the Middlesex Sevens, the pitch on which he scored an England hat-trick against the Barbarians, the scene of his desolation after Wasps lost a Premiership final in extra-time.
Wade, 33, is one of the most accomplished and versatile sportsmen of his generation.
90 Premiership tries put him within 11 of Chris Ashton’s record, despite having spent six years out of the league, three away from the sport altogether.
He has topped the Premiership try-scoring charts in three separate seasons. He shares the record for most tries in a match, with six.
He wore the shirt of the British and Irish Lions the last time they toured Australia. He was in such demand he spent two years post-NFL playing for French giants Racing 92.
And yet he has just that solitary England cap to show for it, won not even at the Home of Rugby but in the remote Argentine city of Salta, up in the Andes, closer to Chile than Buenos Aires.
Consider this. Billy Vunipola, who made his England debut that same June day in 2013, now has 75 caps. He has won Grand Slams, Six Nations and played in a World Cup final.
Wade’s tally is scant reward for such a body of work. The combination of misfortune and being snubbed for so long by a succession of England coaches would have broken many. Not him.
“Do you know why I don’t hold onto regrets?” he tells Planet Rugby. “At a young age I took the decision that England wasn’t the goal for me anymore. It freed up my mind and, as a result, I found a lot of success.
“At the end of the day, you have to remember that in sports the coach is just one man making a decision based around trust, who he favours, maybe the way he wants to play. Sometimes you just don’t fit into that.
“No matter how good you are, it doesn’t mean you’re going to get picked. So you have to have a focus that’s going to drive you and keep you wanting to compete and stay interested in the game.
“In the past, I think, some guys haven’t had that. They’ve focused too much on England and that’s affected their performances.”
A week after his England debut Wade was picked to win his second cap but instead rerouted to Australia to join the Lions as an injury replacement. Later that same year he was named in another England side, this time at Twickenham. Injury forced him to withdraw.
These are ‘sliding doors’ moments Wade lives with. But when Eddie Jones followed Stuart Lancaster and Martin Johnson into the England job and he was again overlooked, his patience ran out.
“I was confused, I didn’t really get clear explanations,” he explains. “There was no trigger. I just felt it was the right time to make a change, to do something different.
“I’ve always looked to grow as a person and an athlete and the NFL was not only an opportunity to do that but one for which I was willing to risk my rugby career.
“I threw myself totally into it. It wasn’t just a challenge because it was a new sport. It was a challenge because life in the US is different.”
Wade continues: “Making an impact in the sport is tough. It’s not all down to ability even. One of the biggest things in the NFL is trust, because there’s so much on the line, such high stakes. For a coach, for a player, for management, for owners.
“For an English player coming in, how do you develop trust with somebody that you just met? It’s hard for them to say, ‘Okay, we’re gonna trust you as our running back, we’re gonna trust you with our £20-30 million quarterback even though you’ve just started playing the game’.
“They’re going to go with somebody they know has done it 100 times over you, unless you’re able to stick around long enough to prove that you can do that. And there’s not always that time. It’s definitely possible, but it’s so hard.”
Wade did stick at it and earned the respect of the franchise. He never intended to come back to rugby, yet the fact he had switched from one sport to another opened other people’s minds to the notion he might.
That is when the approaches from rugby league first began. Wade says he started getting offers from teams from 2018 onwards. At that point he had no interest, but once his Bills adventure ended RL came for him again.
“I was in France at Racing and people were looking for me to come join League,” he reveals. “I couldn’t believe after all this time that teams were still wanting me. To be honest, I still wasn’t interested.
“But a couple of years on Wigan came to the table with a fresh vision of what they’re trying to achieve and how I would fit into that. It was an opportunity I had to take.”
Premiership dream
He will do so in June, but not before moving heaven and earth to fulfil his still-burning ambition to become a Premiership winner.
Wade’s Gloucester side lie fifth in the table, one point off the play-off places with three games to play. Win on Saturday and his final appearance could yet be back at Twickenham for the June 14 showpiece.
“100 per cent we believe we can finish top four,” he says. “From the beginning I said I was coming to Gloucester to win some silverware. I still haven’t won a Premiership and it’s something I really want to achieve.”
Whether this is Wade’s final shot in union remains to be seen. His strategy since returning to the code has been to sign only short-term deals.
“Maximum of a year,” he says. “I believe that enables me to stay open and get the most out of my last few years playing rugby.”