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Christian Wade has taken the next key step in his rugby to NFL journey

Christian Wade made the transition from rugby to NFL.

Former England wing Christian Wade has reached the next key stage of his transformation from rugby union star to an American football player by putting on the extensive padding players wear to try and avoid the massive hits in the National Football League.

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The Buffalo Bills rookie admitted the extra protection gave him a feeling of “invincibility”.

Wade is attempting to make the massive sporting leap from rugby union to become an NFL running back as part of the league’s international player pathway project. 

The former Wasps wing claimed that the first contact training with the Bills took the challenge to a new level.

Wade told News10NBC: “It has been a hell of an experience so far and this training camp has gone up a level with a bit of contact and getting used to the running plays and being hit with the pads on. 

“I’m used to not wearing pads so I know what it feels like to get hit but with the pads, you almost feel a bit more invincible I guess. That’s why it is so much harder.”

The former international is still trying to take in all of the information needed to understand the playbook used by the Bills offence and to recognise his part in the system. 

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He has been helped by veteran players on the Bills squad who have taken time to help the rookie get used to a new sport.

He added: “The hardest part as definitely been the amount of information I have to take on board, digest and then bring onto the field, maybe the same day. 

“The physical side is demanding as we’re going 100 per cent on every play with no rest sometimes. In rugby, it was more of an on-going game and slower-paced.

“There are guys who have had multiple years in the league and also the other guys have five to six years, so there is lots of experience and it’s great for me to learn from those guys even if it is off the field stuff. 

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“Any little things I can pick their brains and they are all really helpful, which is great. This first training camp has been so much fun.”

WATCH: The latest RugbyPass documentary, Foden – Stateside, looks at how ex-England international Ben Foden is settling into Major League Rugby in New York

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J
JW 4 hours ago
'Let's not sugarcoat it': Former All Black's urgent call to protect eligibility rules

Yep, no one knows what will happen. Thing is I think (this is me arguing a point here not a random debate with this one) they're better off trialing it now in a controlled environment than waiting to open it up in a knee jerk style reaction to a crumbling organtization and team. They can always stop it again.


The principle idea is that why would players leave just because the door is ajar?


BBBR decides to go but is not good enough to retain the jersey after doing it. NZ no longer need to do what I suggest by paying him to get back upto speed. That is solely a concept of a body that needs to do what I call pick and stick wth players. NZR can't hold onto everyone so they have to choose their BBBRs and if that player comes back from a sabbatical under par it's a priority to get him upto speed as fast as possible because half of his competition has been let go overseas because they can't hold onto them all. Changing eligibility removes that dilemma, if a BBBR isn't playing well you can be assured that someone else is (well the idea is that you can be more assured than if you only selected from domestic players).


So if someone decides they want to go overseas, they better do it with an org than is going to help improve them, otherwise theyre still basically as ineligible as if they would have been scorning a NZ Super side that would have given them the best chance to be an All Black.

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