Christian Wade on 100 Premiership tries and one shy of Ashton's record as Newcastle prepare to host Sale
Christian Wade is level with Tommy Freeman on five Premiership tries this season and sits on 100 career Premiership tries, one behind Chris Ashton’s all-time mark of 101, as Newcastle prepare to welcome Sale Sharks on Friday night (19:45 BST). He reached 100 after a hat-trick away to Exeter in Newcastle’s last Premiership fixture, becoming only the second player to reach a century of tries in the competition.
Wade, 35, scored his first Premiership try for Wasps as a teenager in a defeat away to Exeter Chiefs in May 2011 in a side that included Josh Lewsey and Simon Shaw, and 82 of his 100 Premiership tries came for London Wasps. He finished as the Premiership’s leading try-scorer, either alone or jointly, in 2012-13, 2016-17 and 2017-18, though Wasps lost the 2017 final to Exeter at Twickenham.
In 2018 Wade left rugby for a six-year absence from the Premiership when he headed to the NFL with the Buffalo Bills via the International Player Pathway; he played in pre-season and on the Bills’ practice squad but never in a full NFL game and was released after three seasons in America. He returned to union with two seasons at Racing 92 in Paris, where he scored 10 tries, before moving back to the Premiership with Gloucester.
Wade spent one season at Kingsholm, adding 11 Premiership tries to his tally and moving above Mark Cueto and alongside Tom Varndell into joint second on the all-time list, nine behind Ashton. He also had a six-month spell in the 13-man code with Wigan Warriors, scoring two tries in his two Super League games for Wigan Warriors in 2025.
His time at Newcastle has lasted just under a year; he scored two tries last season as the Red Bulls finished bottom, then signed a 12-month extension to remain at Kingston Park under head coach Dan McFarland and attack coach Stephen Jones. This term he has five tries in three Premiership matches despite Newcastle losing all three, with two scores against Northampton and a hat-trick against Exeter.
On the sources of his longevity, Wade credited a piece of advice from Riki Flutey and his off-field preparation: "Riki said to me when I was coming through, 'invest in your own team off the field'," he said. "Then I got a serious foot injury after the Lions Tour in 2013 and from there, I really honed in on that. I started working with a physio and a trainer off the field and I was always someone really big on massages too. That made my off-field team and I still work with those guys today. It helped me to learn about my body, be sensitive to what going's on, what I needed to work on and going to the NFL accentuated that even more. Not most guys in rugby had that, but in America everyone had that. That's where I took it to another level and saw the effects of that. In rugby, there is a lot of responsibility on the strength and conditioning team to get players where they need to be but the responsibility needs to be with the athlete. That would take the strain away from a coach having to organise 40-plus players. The coaches could then focus more on performance and getting ready for the game."
Wade’s international career has been limited: he played one Test, away to Argentina in June 2013 under Stuart Lancaster, and was called up as an injury replacement for the British and Irish Lions tour of Australia the same year. He was injured by the time of that autumn’s internationals, slipped down the pecking order and missed selection for the 2015 World Cup when six wingers were chosen. On that period he said: "Growing up playing rugby, everything is geared towards playing for England. It's a bigger platform, you earn more money, more commercial opportunities, but from that 2015 non-selection, they took six wingers and I wasn't part of that. It didn't really add up. I thought I'm obviously not someone they are looking at for the trajectory of the team, so instead of focusing on England, my whole focus was on myself and the team I was playing for and went even harder. Things became a lot clearer as I didn't have to think what England were thinking, if they were watching my games, it was something I removed from my mind and my career continued to push on."
Ashton's mark of 101 has stood for over three years, or 1,285 days to be exact, and Wade’s contract at Newcastle is up at the end of the season, leaving his longer-term future uncertain; Friday night’s match against Sale Sharks offers his first opportunity to equal and then surpass the record. "I think a lot of people think I came back to break the record," he said. "But I'm all about making the most of the gifts that God has given me and being an athlete, taking that very seriously, wanting to learn from everybody, young and old guys, trying different ways of training to get the best out of my body. Everyone can see I've got a lot of life and a lot of sport in me. Even post this season and getting the record, I want to keep playing until I don't have the juice anymore. I'm going to keep doing what I do and see what happens."