{"id":343163,"date":"2025-12-12T12:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T12:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/343163\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T12:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T12:58:10","slug":"christian-wade-to-make-rugby-union-return-against-south-african-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/343163\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Wade to make rugby union return against South African opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Christian Wade will make his Newcastle<\/a> Red Bulls<\/a> debut on Saturday as the former England<\/a> winger is named to start against South African visitors the Lions<\/a> at Kingston Park.<\/p>\n

Back in rugby union after a spell with Wigan Warriors, Wade returns nine tries shy of breaking the Gallagher PREM\u2019s all-time scoring record. His first outing in Red Bulls colours comes in EPCR Challenge Cup<\/a> action, as Newcastle look to build on last weekend\u2019s 24-13 away win over Lyon.<\/p>\n

Wade is one of seven personnel changes, with Cameron Hutchison<\/a> and Elliott Obatoyinbo also coming into a reshaped backline. Ethan Grayson<\/a> shifts to fly-half, while Ollie Fletcher<\/a> and Richard Palframan<\/a> are named in the front row. Tom Christie<\/a> captains the side from openside after a man-of-the-match display last time out, with Finn Baker<\/a> and Ollie Leatherbarrow<\/a> also starting.<\/p>\n

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Head coach Alan Dickens said: \u201cIt\u2019s starting to come together for us, and I was pleased by a lot of what I saw last weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when we had a player sent to the sin bin we didn\u2019t concede a single point or a single penalty during that period, which has been a big work-on for us. I thought the lads stuck together really well and didn\u2019t allow Lyon<\/a> a losing bonus point at the end, but it\u2019s only one game and we\u2019re not going overboard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pleasing thing is that we\u2019re starting to see on a match day a lot more of the things we\u2019ve been working on in training during the week. Getting back-to-back wins would represent further progress for us, but we\u2019re taking nothing for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wade\u2019s return to English rugby union, Dickens added: \u201cChristian has been with us for a couple of weeks now and has got a really infectious personality.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s already the life and soul of the place, he\u2019s working hard every day in training and he is someone who has always looked after himself from a physical preparation standpoint.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a potent finisher with plenty of gas out wide, and we\u2019re looking forward to seeing the impact he can make for us on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to the challenge posed by the Lions, Dickens said: \u201cThe South African sides bring a new dimension to the competition, and it\u2019s a great challenge for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou tend to associate South African rugby with physicality and big set-piece focus, but the Lions are a team who also like to offload and play with plenty of attacking ambition. It will be an interesting test for us, but we\u2019re looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newcastle Red Bulls:\u00a0
15. Boeta Chamberlain<\/a>, 14. Christian Wade<\/a>, 13. Alex Hearle<\/a>, 12. Cameron Hutchison<\/a>, 11. Elliott Obatoyinbo, 10. Ethan Grayson<\/a>, 9. Sam Stuart; 1. Adam Brocklebank<\/a>, 2. Ollie Fletcher<\/a>, 3. Richard Palframan<\/a>, 4. Oscar Usher<\/a>, 5. Finn Baker<\/a>, 6. Tom Gordon, 7. Tom Christie (captain), 8. Ollie Leatherbarrow.<\/p>\n

Replacements: 16. George McGuigan<\/a>, 17. Micky Rewcastle, 18. Murray McCallum<\/a>, 19. Jamie Hodgson<\/a>, 20. Amanaki Mafi<\/a>, 21. James Elliott<\/a>, 22. Brett Connon<\/a>, 23. Harrison Obatoyinbo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian Wade will make his Newcastle Red Bulls debut on Saturday as the former England winger is named…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-343163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}