Yes,Wade is small but his talent is giant-size

CHRISTIAN Wade encapsulates English rugby’s irrational fear of the X-Factor players it produces, and this week it got the shock it deserved when news broke that the 27-year-old Wasps wing is going to try his luck in American Football.

It is a fear that leaves coaches flummoxed over how to employ brilliant players like Wade to best effect – with the Wasps coach Dai Young, a Welshman, a rare exception – and the winger’s lack of recognition at international level raising another burning issue about the modern game.

Rugby Union still purports to be a game for all shapes and sizes, but increasingly it is trading under false pretences because at professional level the odds are stacked increasingly against men like the 5ft 8ins Wade, who weighs just under 13 stone (82kg), becoming Test players.

Wade’s imminent departure to the NFL is a warning shot not just to the game in England, but also worldwide, that the balance in our game between skill and speed on one hand, and size and power on the other, is badly out of kilter.

This is reflected not just in the growing incidence of serious injuries and concussion in a pro game that is fast becoming a contest between super-sized hulks, but in the inability of smaller players – however gifted – to get a fair crack in selection.

Some will point towards England’s Jason Robinson (30 tries in 56 Tests) and Wales wing Shane Williams (60 tries in 91 Tests) as players of small physical stature who succeeded in the land of the giants contest that international Rugby Union has become.

However, Robinson and Williams were exceptions to the overriding rule that rewards size and power, even in their relatively recent eras – and the signs are that for Wade’s generation of players it has become even more difficult for the small man to get to the very top.

I have advocated Wade’s inclusion in England squads since Stuart Lancaster was appointed coach, especially after the Wasps wing’s scintillating form leading into the 2013 Six Nations. Instead of giving him a run against Italy to show what he could do, Lancaster delayed and Wade’s window disappeared due to injury.

Later that year Lancaster eventually gave Wade his chance – and his one England cap – and he played with typical verve in their first Test victory over Argentina in Salta.

Wade must have felt that all his Christmases had come at once after the match when he was called by Warren Gatland to make the trip from South America to Australia to join the 2013 British & Irish Lions squad as an injury replacement.

He missed the chance of a second England cap by making the interminable trip across the Pacific, arriving at the Lions camp in Canberra barely 24 hours before their midweek game against the Brumbies.

The severely jet-lagged Wade was thrown in to the starting line-up in a scratch Lions side alongside players he had barely trained with. I was staying in the same hotel and recall sharing a lift with Billy Twelvetrees, another late England call-up for the Brumbies encounter.

Twelvetrees had that 1,000 mile stare that is the hallmark of the jet-lagged, and it was no surprise when the Lions

“Despite Eddie Jones declaring regularly that he is searching for X-Factor players, Wade has remained in the wilderness”

lost narrowly to the Brumbies later that evening. Like most of his team-mates in the scratch Lions outfit, Wade did not have the best of times, especially when he and Rob Kearney were brushed off as the 6ft 4ins Tevita Kuridrani burst through for the only try of the match.

However, where no mud appeared to attach itself permanently to the non-jetlagged Kearney’s reputation for the missed tackle, the incident stuck to Wade, becoming proof that he could not be trusted in defence at Test level because he was simply too vulnerable due to his lack of pounds and inches.

Never mind the scintillating speed, balance, agility and bewitching footwork that made Wade one of the most thrilling attacking players on the planet.

Never mind the razor-sharp finisher’s instinct that puts him third in the all-time Premiership try-scoring table, with 82, and every chance – if he stayed in rugby – of overhauling Tom Varndell (92) and Mark Cueto (90).

Instead, the too-small tag stuck. Despite the glaring success of another small wing, New Zealand’s Nehe Milner-Skudder, at the 2015 World Cup, and Eddie Jones declaring regularly since taking over as England head coach that he is searching for X-Factor players, Wade has remained in the wilderness.

He has not had a sniff of a cap during the Aussie’s three seasons in charge. Now, disillusioned by his lack of opportunity at international level, Christian Wade, the X-Factor player England were too scared to pick, has left our sport in his slipstream and headed for an American sport he hopes will be more appreciative.