On Friday night, Christian Wade hopes to toast to a slice of rugby history with a shot of tequila. Newcastle’s winger is one score away from equalling Chris Ashton’s record of 101 PREM tries. An achievement worthy of a night out on the Toon.

Wade scored his first top-flight try for Wasps in 2011 and his career has taken him to rugby league and American Football but now, more than 15 years later, he is on the brink of rewriting English rugby union’s history books.

‘Hopefully I’ll have my family and friends around when it happens – but we need to win first!’ Wade tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘We’ll probably go for dinner and commemorate the day. My missus is a big foodie, so we do go and try different spots. There's one pizza spot we go to called Sanco. It's all-you-can-eat pizza for £16 a head. Other than that, I’ll just crack on with my business!’

No matter how much pizza he eats, Wade will never be one of the big beasts of the rugby world. 

He is just 5ft 9in and 13st 5lb, relying on his speed, elusive skillset and a few other secrets to sit on the brink of history despite this only being his ninth full season in the PREM. He took four years out in his prime to pursue an NFL dream with the Buffalo Bills, spent eight months last year playing rugby league for Wigan Warriors and had a two-year spell in France with Racing 92. 

‘I just admire guys who are able to get the job done year after year,’ explains Wade, 35. ‘Guys who look after their bodies – LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo. When you watch them, you know you’re not going to see much of a drop off. I think people underestimate how hard it is to stay consistent.

‘I know my body very well and I've had my own team since 2013. I've had my own physio and multiple trainers across the world. I've got people here and in America, depending on where I'm at. I usually do a two-hour massage therapy session in one sitting per week – and I use the pool quite a lot.

‘Your body's your money. It’s the way you make money so it doesn't make sense to not invest in it. Guys go out to socialise, go drinking and stuff like that, but you could spend the same amount of money on your body and the return will be a lot bigger. You know what I mean?’

Despite his laidback demeanour, Wade is a dedicated student of the game. ‘It’s not just as simple as catch and run,’ he says. ‘There's a science behind it. I’m a student of how I can use my body to manipulate defenders. 

'I was talking with (Newcastle back-rower) Sam Graham about one of the moves we did here at the Red Bulls. I was telling him that I don't see defenders, I just see bodies as obstacles. You react to what they do. Some of it comes down to instinct.

‘My awareness of my surroundings just came to me. I think I’ve just got a natural eye for the line. Evasion, using the space, using my footwork, ball placement, messing around with how I hold the ball in two hands. I used to watch videos of Jason Robinson, Joe Rokocoko and Sitiveni Sivivatu. I’m a bit of a visual learner. I would just be on YouTube for hours, watching loads of different clips.

‘If I've got the ball on the edge and I know I'm going to run, then I'm usually holding the ball with one hand. But before that, it's in two hands because I don't know if I’m going to kick or pass. Shane Williams used to do that quite a bit. You keep the ball in two hands to keep your options open.’

England centre Seb Atkinson tells Daily Mail Sport that he was astounded by Wade’s ability to use grubber kicks to create scoring opportunities when the pair were Gloucester team-mates for a season two years ago.

‘He’s always been known for beating people one-on-one but what really impressed me was his support play,’ Atkinson says. ‘There are a lot of things about him that people underappreciate. He’s got a really good kicking game. He can grubber the ball down the touch line while running at full speed and it will just roll and roll without going out, which is pretty handy for a winger.’

A hat-trick against Exeter in round three this season took Wade’s try tally to a round 100. His nifty finishing ability has dazzled crowds over the years, but his favourite try came against Leicester back in 2011.

‘There have been a few but my favourite was probably when I scored a hat-trick in my first game against Leicester. It was a kick return and Hugo Southwell – blast from the past – caught it and threw a massive pass across the field. I was able to run and score in the corner. That was fun, being young, playing against our rivals at Adams Park.

‘I've been able to do a lot. I can’t complain. Playing for Wasps in the post-Lawrence Dallaglio era, we went through a lot back then. We nearly went into administration. They invested in a group of young guys like myself, Elliot Daly, Joe Launchbury and Joe Simpson. We built a team that eventually got to the PREM final.

'On that journey, I got to play with some of the world's greatest players. Guys like Kurtley Beale, Charles Piutau, George Smith, Piri Weepu, Juan de Jongh, Lima Sopoaga, Danny Cipriani, Kyle Eastmond, Dan Robson. My first director of rugby was Sir Ian McGeechan! Imagine that? That’s some legendary s*** right there!

'Shaun Edwards was my first head coach. He was on me pretty hard in the early days. I was just like, “Bro, he is always on me, man”. But if he’s on you then you know he cares about you. It was awesome. They set my expectations and the foundations.’

In the early years of his career, there was a clamour for Wade to become England’s starting winger. Yet his only cap came against Argentina in 2013, when many of the front-line players were on the British & Irish Lions tour of Australia, which he later joined as an injury replacement. International rugby is dominated by big beasts but Wade has no hard feelings about his lack of Test exposure.

‘I wouldn't say it was a frustration,’ he says. ‘When Stuart Lancaster got named as coach after the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand, I was brought onto that summer tour of South Africa. I was only 21 at the time. I’d played England Under 20s the year before that with guys like Owen Farrell.

‘Things were obviously on the right trajectory. There was a lot of competition with guys like Chris Ashton, Mike Brown and Ben Foden. Ultimately, my opportunity came and I pulled my hamstring two days before the autumn internationals. That obviously opened up the door for guys like Jonny May and Jack Nowell. At elite level, you get your opportunity and if you don't take it you may never get another one. That's pretty much what happened with me.

‘Of course I would have liked more opportunities to play for England, but I did everything I could. I was never really frustrated with that. That's just how it goes sometimes. I went on to do the NFL stuff, came back to France, did the England stuff, did the Lions stuff, and now I'm back here with the Red Bulls where we're looking to build the best rugby team in the world. We're at the beginning of our journey, paving the way.’

Newcastle host Sale on Friday night in the northern derby. They are edging closer to their first win of the season and it could be the perfect setting for Wade to hit his big scoring milestone. Having proudly held the record since 2022, Ashton claimed that he would ‘rather be at home on his own’ when it gets broken – although TNT Sports have ensured the retired winger will be commentating on Newcastle’s next two fixtures.

‘Is he winding me up?' asks Wade. 'I haven't seen it, but I see him around and we're on good terms. It's all banter, isn't it? We’ve got to give you something to talk about. Make it a bit more exciting.

‘I bump into him every now and again. Even when I was at Wigan, he'd come up to a game. We're cool, bro. But obviously for the purposes of TV and stuff, it’s something to talk about, which is cool.

'But you never know… his comments might be more on the serious side. Hopefully we’ll find out!’