Christian Wade was critical of England's failures in selection in the lead up to the 2015 Rugby World Cup, speaking on this week's The Rugby Paper Podcast.
Wade, 31, was candid as he gave his views of the period between 2011 and 2015, when despite being one of the most prolific try scorers in the Premiership, he was capped just once for his country, on a tour where several of the main team were away with the Lions, as England faced Argentina in 2013.
It looked as if Wade was set for a major career on the international stage after he joined that summer's Lions tour of Australia as injury cover, and featured in a narrow defeat to the Brumbies, but he was surprised to be overlooked as Chris Ashton was chosen ahead of him for the opening game of the Autumn Internationals.
“I missed four months of the [2011-12 season] and was second top try scorer, which is crazy,” said Wade, “I did the South Africa tour at the end of that season, Argentina the following year and was called up to the Lions.
“All of a sudden I'm competing against Chris Ashton for the [England wing] spot, I'm like ‘I was on tour I did Lions, why am I having to compete'.
“But obviously I'm trained to have an underdog mentality because of how I've always been overlooked, so whatever, bring it on.
“So Ashton gets picked for Australia, under pressure because the media were asking why I wasn't playing. We just about won and he didn't really do nothing [sic], but that's usual anyway, I don't know why people get excited about him cause he just gets on the end of everything.
“If I played in the teams he played in I would've had the number one record [for most Premiership tries] five, six years ago.”
Two tries that came from over 100m combined in a superb performance against Gloucester, where Wade said he “tore them a new one”, earned him the call for the second game of the Autumn against Argentina.
But he was unable to play due to a hamstring problem in the build up, and shortly after suffered a foot injury that ended his season.
“The following week, Lanny [Stuart Lancaster] puts me in for the Argentina game and I tear my hamstring. So I miss that game and worked my way back but did my foot injury towards the end of 2013, and I never really got a look in after that.
“It doesn't really make sense, because before and after that point, any time somebody got injured and came back they would be straight back in the team.
“In my head I was always wondering why it was always me who couldn't catch a break, it really did affect me to be honest.”
Returning for the 2014/15 season, Wade made an instant impact on the new campaign as he ran in seven tries in his first nine games of the season.
And though he went on something of a drought as he failed to score in the next five games, he finished the season superbly, with six tries in the final five before a hat-trick in England's uncapped game against the Barbarians.
It was the muted reaction of his coaches to that performance, followed by a confusing voicemail – effectively confirm he was out of the squad – left by Stuart Lancaster that confirmed to Wade his international career was over.
“For a couple of years I was just trying to find my feet, and then 2015 came and I decided to go as hard as possible during the World Cup year, that me, Farrell and Ford had known about since 2008 where we were 16/17 years old.
“So we get there, and I don't have the best year but at the business end of the season I show up and we have the Barbarians game where I score a hat-trick. A hat-trick against an all star team! After the game no-one says anything to me except Mike Catt who says ‘good game'.
“From that point on I knew that England wasn't for me, and I didn't care about trying to play for England and pleasing coaches anymore. I washed my hands of England and decided I wasn't going to play for them again.
“Two weeks after the game I get a call from Lanny, and I didn't even pick up cause I'd made this decision in my head. I listened to the voicemail afterwards, and he says ‘Hey Wadey mate, good game the other week, you scored some good tries', as if I'd only scored one or two, ‘we thought you did well, but we're going to go with Roko [Semesa Rokoduguni] on this occasion, you've had your opportunity, we want to give him one.'
“It didn't make sense, you're picking a 50 man squad for the World Cup and you're telling me, as if it's interchangeable, ‘you've had your opportunity, we're going to look at somebody else', no, what you're doing is you're not picking me mate.”
Reflecting on a reputation he couldn't shake off for not being as strong defensively as he was offensively, he cited Brad Davis' encouragement from stats the then Wasps defence coach had analysed as evidence he was looked upon somewhat unfairly by the England staff.
But he was gracious when discussing the England coaches themselves, if only to say that they had let a quality talent slip by the wayside as Wade went onto to add 2016/17 and 2017/18 to 2012/13 as seasons he topped the try count in the league.
No-one has been the league's top try scorer more times, and Wade has not since played for England since.
“When I was really going for it from 2013 to 2016 [the same period Davis was Wasps defence coach], he watched all of my games and defensive clips and pulled me aside one day, not understanding what people were saying, to show me some stats.
“The top three guys for missed tackles were all England players, and I was nowhere to be seen on there, while I was right up there with some of the best defenders in my position.
“So he said ‘when people are saying this, that and the other it's a false fallacy. They're just saying that because of you size or it might looked like you miss tackles.'
“You can't take it away from the coaches, they do have a hard job, but they are going to rely heavily on feedback and sometimes certain people get pigeon-holed and labelled with certain things.
“It does happen and I guess that's part of sport, but there's some dudes where you can't just let them slip through the cracks, it's criminal!”
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