The Christian Wade conundrum
Two games, two tries. On paper, Christian Wade has made a promising start to his Wigan Warriors (and rugby league) career, but anyone who’s seen him play in the past couple of weeks knows better.
After his debut against Huddersfield I was surprised to hear virtually nothing but praise for his performance. He was constantly caught out of position in defence and looked nervous under the high ball, but because he scored a try and Wigan went on to win a game they were trailing in, he got away with it. The fact they were playing a Giants side with just three wins all year, no doubt helped.
Against a much better team in Hull FC on the weekend, he had no such luck though. Aidan Sezer targeted him mercilessly throughout the match with his kicks, and twice Wade spilled them to allow the Black and Whites over for tries.
At this point I should point out that Wade wasn’t the only player in a Warriors shirt to play poorly on the weekend and I certainly couldn’t fault him for effort, but he looks woefully out of his depth on an RL pitch at the moment.
And here’s where the conundrum lies. I say ‘at the moment’ because I firmly believe that given time he could become a very good rugby league winger. Give him some open space and there are times when he looks like prime Jonah Lomu. He’s the second-highest try scorer in Premiership Rugby history too, so clearly the guy has some ability with ball in hand and the line in front of him.
There are two issues though:
- Wigan don’t have time for him to get up to speed.
- He’s 34-years-old.
Regarding the first point, the Warriors are chasing a third straight Super League title, and we’re very much at the business end of the season now. The Cherry and Whites have a maximum of 11 games left this year. If Wade takes even five games to reach the level needed for a Super League winger at a top club, it’ll be too late for Wigan. And if you’ve seen him play over the past two weeks, then five games for him to get to grips with our game would be highly optimistic.
Which leads me to point 2.
At 34, he’s in the twilight of his career, regardless of which code he’s playing in. Learning to play a new sport at this age to a professional level would be quite the achievement, particularly for someone with no prior experience. It’s not as if he’s a Sonny Bill Williams or Israel Folau, who returned to League for another crack after successful stints in Union.
By the time he can potentially be considered a Super League-standard winger, retirement will be fast approaching, so it begs the question – what was the point of his arrival in the first place?
Presumably Wigan felt that he’d be able to hit the ground running – after all, he’s only on a short-term contract until the end of 2025 and they’re not paying him to play reserve grade. For a club that has done so much right when it comes to recruitment in the past few years, it seems incredibly naive of them.
Even when his arrival was announced on Good Friday, I was quite sceptical, as it was a very ‘un-Wigan’ signing. What I mean by this is that the squad Matty Peet has assembled is largely made up of homegrown products accompanied by some impressive imports and established Super League players like Kruise Leeming and Jake Wardle.
The arrival of a veteran Union player with a high profile and no experience of RL is the sort of move I’d expect a side near the bottom of the table to make in a vain attempt to boost attendances, increase their social maedia presence and end the year on a bit of a high.
For a team with all four trophies sitting in the cabinet, crowds of 14,000+ for every home game and realistic ambitions of securing two trophies it’s quite a bizarre move. Even at the time it felt a bit gimmicky.
Of course it’s easy for me to look back smugly now, and I’m sure Abbas Miski’s injury-disrupted year played a big part in Wigan moving for Wade, but if they desperately needed a winger, surely there were more ready-made options out there.
The club’s famed academy would have been a good place to start, but if the coach felt that none of the youngsters were ready, then I’d have half-expected to see a Championship, NSW or QLD Cup player turn up for a six-month stint.
As it is, Wade has been thrown in at the deep end and I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for the lad, who clearly looked rattled on Saturday. The ironic cheers in the crowd when he did make a catch won’t have done him any favours either, and whatever pitch he came up with to get a contract for 2025, it was ultimately Wigan who decided to sign off on the deal and put him in the crosshairs.
All that being said, I still think we’ll see a bit more of him between now and the end of the season, especially with the Warriors missing a few for next week’s clash with Catalans. The one plus point for Wade is that the Dragons have been so woeful in recent months that even a couple more big errors shouldn’t prevent a home victory on Friday night and there’s every chance he could make it three in three for tries.
I’ll put my neck on the line a little with this prediction though. Unless there’s an even more major injury crisis than there is right now for Wigan, there’s no way we’ll be seeing him in a first team jumper when the play-offs roll around.
Which again leaves me with one question – why did they sign him in the first place?
