LONG READ Christian Wade: 'I still feel sharp, I still feel fast. If anything I feel stronger than before.'

Talk about doing the family proud.

The siblings clearly take pride in one another, too. Christian tells me about Adam – nickname Smiley – as soon as we meet, showing me a photo his brother has just sent him from Vegas: a TV screengrab of Wade on debut in Cherry and White. There is clearly a mutual admiration; a taking of delight in the other’s achievements.

And as Wade begins to light up the Premiership for the second time, it’s worth considering how the power of family has influenced his one-of-a-kind rugby journey.

But first, let’s get the Dua Lipa puns out of the way nice and early. Wade has just completed his first Training Season at Gloucester and made his debut in a Physical debut with Saracens, before showing the kind of Houdini tricks against Bristol on Friday that are bound to Blow Your Mind.

Awful off-beat puns aside, Wade’s match-winning display at Bristol was genuinely pretty mind-blowing. His first try was a first-class case of predatory effortlessness, the second an outrageous interception that displayed the kind of positional awareness that turns a defensive lost cause into an attacking triumph, and the third appeared to momentarily bend the laws of Newtonian mechanics at Ashton Gate.

At 33, it is an objective fact that Wade is not a spring chicken for a top-flight winger. But those 30-something legs will have made for pretty disconcerting viewing in the Bristol analysis room over the last few days. And the exciting thing for Gloucester fans – and the worrying thing for fans of every other stripe in the Premiership – is that Wade estimates that his strength and agility are greater now than they were the last time he was in the Premiership with Wasps.

“I feel good, you know,” says Wade with an aura of contentment around him. “No different to how I felt before. I still feel sharp, I still feel fast. If anything I feel stronger, more agile. I’ve got that bit of experience, a bit more calmness about me. I still feel really good out there.”

While Wade’s feet are capable of some lightning-fast moves, he’s shuffled into the Kingsholm media room in a pair of sliders. He is a picture of relaxation. I’m reminded of a scene from The Last Dance, where Michael Jordan is just hours from a play-off final. The game will require him to rip into gravity-insulting feats of athleticism, but in the build-up he is almost yawning; a predator sprawled out in rest, conserving his energy before going for the jugular. There is something similar about Wade: utterly economical in movement, but primed to explode into the realm of the ballistic when the game requires it.

Premiership fans of the last decade will vividly remember the many times when Wade went ballistic at Wasps, wriggling out of tackles, stepping his opposite man, and haring to the tryline. A paltry single England cap came Wade’s way – a near-criminal return given his week-by-week destructiveness in the Premiership. That was followed by three seasons as a running back for the Buffalo Bills’ practice squad in the NFL and two years in Paris with Racing 92.

Wade’s career, in short, has not been entirely dissimilar to that of an itinerant pop star: big audiences, plenty of airmiles, bags of practice, and enough greatest hits (or tries) to make up a pretty tasty showreel.

Which brings us back to his brother. Adam is a session drummer, and while Lipa is his current boss, he’s previously played for top-name musicians across the globe. While Christian has run across sports fields on both sides of the Atlantic, Adam has played some of those same stadia as a musician.

CHRISTIAN WADE IS BACK! 👏

An instant reply for @gloucesterrugby with the former NFL man’s first try since his return to #GallagherPrem #BRIvGLO pic.twitter.com/58xRlxW1NC

— Rugby on TNT Sports (@rugbyontnt) September 27, 2024

One’s success, it seems, spurs on the other.

Christian himself, it turns out, is no slouch behind the drums – and the mesmerising timing of his footwork on a rugby pitch perhaps derives partly from his timing on the kit. Or is itvice versa? Certainly, Christian is quick to credit his brother and wider family for what he regards as his healthy attitude to sport.

“I’ve always been, like, rugby’s rugby and my lifestyle’s centred around being an athlete,” he says. “But life outside of rugby for me is definitely a big thing. I never really grew up with rugby, I’m the only one of my family who plays. Rugby’s almost like an escape from everything else we do, rather than the opposite. For some other players, their family is in rugby and everything is rugby, rugby, and they will do extra stuff as an escape from rugby. But my life is the other way around.”

Wade’s life, it seems, is as balanced as his running style. But that’s not to say he doesn’t have a strong sense of professional commitment. Dua Lipa is rocking up at the Royal Albert Hall before long, but Wade says he’ll need to check his schedule at Gloucester before deciding whether he’s going or not.

While Wade’s return to the Premiership undoubtedly marks a new chapter in his sporting career, there is still the odd moment when the weight of history asserts itself. When he arrived for his first game at Kingsholm, Wade was greeted by the distinctly forlorn sight of a Wasps fan bedecked in full black-and-yellow kit and a Wasps flag. A ghost of his launchpad club, now sadly from a bygone age. But as his hat-trick against Bristol displayed, Wade is a figure as much of the Premiership’s present as from its past. And while somethings have remained the same since his last game for Wasps in 2018, others are that little bit different.

“It’s refreshing coming back to an environment I know well – or I should say I knew well,” he says of the English top flight. “There have been a lot of changes in personnel in the league. A lot of the guys I came up with have either moved on or they are a lot older now and there’s a whole new generation. I’m like, ‘Who’s this guy? And who’s this guy?’

“The game for me is the same really in terms of the level. The boys are still out there hitting hard, and the structure’s great. It’s really good being back. Really good. And with a team like Gloucester as well – such a young team.”

What the Cherry and Whites need, believes Wade, is time for the club’s new attack-minded identity to bed in, which in particular requires time for the new Wales half-back pairing of Tomos Williams and Gareth Anscombe to settle. And from that he hopes a legacy can be created. As an exemplar, Wade points to the side he made his Gloucester debut against – a club that has forged a constantly renewing identity.

“Look at Saracens. The DNA runs deep. Quite a few players have moved on, but they still have that core. Jamie George, Elliot Daly, Maro, Isiekwe – you’ve got that strong DNA that spreads throughout the whole team. At least they’ve got an identity. I think that was something we didn’t have in France with my team [Racing 92] and we were working on that, and even here at Gloucester we’re working on having an identity so that when teams come here they know what to expect.

“This team’s really got something special. We need to tighten up and get some consistency and then I think you’ll see us competing at the top half of the table rather than towards the bottom like last year.”

While the Premiership ladder will be the table that ultimately means the most this campaign, Wade’s pursuit of Chris Ashton’s Premiership try record (101) will be one other table worth keeping a beady eye on. Wade needs 17 more.

The Premiership, we are told, needs its characters and its role-models if it’s going to defy recent history and turn itself into a marketable, financially stable league. It needs its Finn Russells, its Maro Itojes, its Ellis Genges. And its Louis Rees-Zammits, until he quit Gloucester last season to have a crack at the NFL.

But nevermind Zammit’s departure. A wiser, more experienced try-scoring machine is in town, and he’s got genuine pop star links and quality. Wade’s efforts to chase down Ashton’s record could provide the compelling narrative arc for this season which helps give the Premiership a drizzle of fairy-dust.

“It’s going to take a bit of time but I don’t think we’re that far off,” says Wade of his Gloucester side’s ambitions. “It’s about keeping our heads high, keeping confidence high, and keeping energy high throughout the full 80 minutes.”

Head high, confidence high and energy high. Drumroll: welcome back to the Prem, brother. It’s Christian Wade Mark 2.