IT’S great to have Christian Wade back in the Premiership, with Gloucester. It’s hard to comprehend how such a prodigious talent was allowed to slip through England’s fingers.
Wade won his solitary England cap on the tour of Argentina in 2013 before flying out to join the Lions party in Australia.
In 2015 he was offered a contract in NFL. He turned it down in order to make the England team for the home World Cup. Unfortunately, Stuart Lancaster had other ideas – his 50-man training squad included five wings: Chris Ashton, Jack Nowell, Jonny May, Anthony Watson and Marland Yarde, but no Wade.
That must have really knocked him for six. Passing up on a chance in the NFL, was a big deal for any budding Billy Whizz, and at that time, Wade was the nearest thing to Jason Robinson England had.
What an absolute lack of foresight by the suits at Twickenham.
This doesn’t surprise me, as Felix Jones thought he was coming to England as attack coach (a position he’d held with South Africa, through two winning World Cups), but instead was asked to work in defence. And who remembers the Sam Burgess debacle?
Anyway, Wade’s back, but at 33, England team selection is unlikely.
■ WE all have differing opinions as to the current state of our game and I think that the league system as it stands is detrimental to the long term health of the lower junior clubs.
I played for a village club for many years and was for some time fixtures secretary. During that time nearly all of our fixtures were within about one hour’s drive and many were repeated year after year so often good camaraderie was built up between clubs and it was always good to meet old adversaries. Nowadays my village club has to travel several hours to complete some fixtures creating a cost they can ill afford.
That brings me on to money and the payment of players. Premiership clubs pay players more than than can sensibly afford and without sugar daddies more are likely to fail. That is their problem but when it comes to clubs in the National Leagues and below, paying players which again they may or may not be able to afford in the long term, makes no sense. I believe only the top three divisions should be allowed to pay players and the rest revert to true amateurism.
