Wade made 165 appearances for Wasps during a seven-year spell with the club from 2011 to 2018. He was also capped once by England, in 2013, and joined the British and Irish Lions tour that year.
He quit the sport in 2018 to pursue a career in the NFL and joined Buffalo Bills as a running back via the league’s International Player Pathway, but he never made a regular-season appearance for the side.
Former England international Danny Care is the only other still-active player ahead of Wade on the all-time Premiership try-scoring list, with 85 tries.
Wade believes Ashton’s record can be broken.
“For me it’s two seasons, but I could do it in one,” said Wade.
“People always ask me about the tries and I’ve never really focused on them too much.
“There were probably two years when I was playing with Tom Varndell, who was always like ‘tries, tries, tries’. And we were competing against each other.
“I just think you have to let it happen and if it happens, it happens.”
