Christian Wade: Newcastle winger close to record in try-dominated Prem

With Wade four short of equalling Ashton’s 101 tally and five tries away from breaking it, the current record holder can feel him coming.

The Slough-born winger is the only player in the top 10 still actively playing, but Ashton believes the mark is eventually going to go a long way past 101 with the type of rugby on offer in the modern Prem.

Last year’s top try scorers, Northampton and England’s Tommy Freeman and Saracens’ teenage starlet Noah Caluori both touched down 18 times, the highest season-ending figure for five years, while Caluori’s tally included him scoring five tries per match on two separate occasions against Sale Sharks.

Freeman started this campaign with a hat-trick in the same game as Wade’s double and that took his career mark to 58, all at the age of 25.

With the England winger having signed a new contract at Saints and their dynamic games delivering tries by the barrel load, could he be the player to eventually take the record?

“It’s happening [the record being broken], but it’s not going to last long, whoever takes it,” Ashton told BBC’s Rugby Union Weekly podcast.

“I think it’s going to be absolutely blown to smithereens.

“I sat there on Friday and watched Tommy run in another hat-trick and thought he’s going to get 20 this year.

“Give him another five or six years at this rate that we’re going, oh my goodness. He’s 25 and he’s on 58! By the age of 30, he’ll have 100 plus.

“Christian Wade is missing more tries per game than he is scoring tries but that probably shows where Newcastle’s mindset is.”