It’s humbling, the hardest thing I’ve ever done

issue as a kick returner. Wade, who has an American girlfriend, spent much of the summer in the United States where he worked with an NFL footwork coach. He has decided, boldly, to take the plunge and is understood to be flying out this weekend.

The rewards are huge but the success rate tiny. Fewer than two per cent of college players make the grade in the NFL, let alone incomers who have never played the game.

For every Hayden Smith, who swapped Saracens for the New York Jets, and Jarryd Hayne, who went from Australian rugby league to the San Francisco 49ers, there are plenty of misses.

Wade will be entering an alien landscape according to a former schoolmate at RGS High Wycombe, Christian Scotland-Williamson, who made the same leap at the start of the year. “I thought there would be more similarities but it has been a wake-up call coming face to face with it,” he said. “When you watch American Football, you don’t realise how much preparation and detail goes into the work – a lot more than rugby. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done and humbling. You walk out of a career where you have some security into a building where people don’t know what you have done or can do. You have to prove yourself to earn respect from coaches and team-mates.

“It’s a whole other world in terms of professionalism, expectations and pressure on performance. One bad practice and you could be out. It’s the ultimate meritocracy. Deliver and you’ll always have a job; if not they don’t waste time making decisions.”

Scotland-Williamson doing well. He is in the practice squad of is the Pittsburgh Steelers, with the aim of breaking into the elite 53 next season, having followed Yorkshire Carnegie’s Alex Gray across the Atlantic. But, 10 months in, the differences in catching angles, emphasis on explosive speed and the sheer weight of the playbook are still taking some getting used to. “It is just like doing intermittent sprints with a quiz at the end of each one,” he said. “A lineout menu for a season in rugby could be 40 different calls, using 12 in a game.

“In an NFL game you have between 60 and 80 plays on offence and defence and a bank of 200 calls you draw from. Over a season there may be 1,000 total plays.”

It will be tough for Wade but there is an upside.

“He’d go from getting hit 10 times in a game of rugby from 10 carries to two or three times in American Football depending on how much he gets the ball,” said Scotland-Williamson.

“And the pads make a huge difference. You don’t feel it as much when hit.”