Jonny set the benchmark for every No 10

DEEP down, I think the best No 10s — Beauden Barrett, Owen Farrell and Johnny Sexton — still look to Jonny Wilkinson as the benchmark. Jonny took the game to a new level. He was legendary for holding up the England team bus because he’d always stick around to practise his kicking. Players today talk about doing their ‘extras’ and a lot of that goes back to Jonny’s approach. I can’t believe he’s turning 40 already, it seems like only yesterday that he kicked that drop goal in Sydney and I want to thank him for everything he did for England during that amazing period. I remember when Jason Robinson first turned up from rugby league. He came with a new skillset. His footwork was a different level and Jonny came up to me at the end of the session and said: ‘Have you seen his footwork? We’ve got to get our footwork like that.’ He was like a sponge. He’d come up to the coaches and point out where we needed to work harder. Jonny, Joel Stransky and Dan Carter were all era-defining fly-halves. In 2003, any coach in the world would have wanted Jonny as their No 10. He was priceless but I never thought he was the right candidate for captain — he had enough on his plate. The thing about Jonny, though, is that he would always push himself to new levels. He proved me wrong on captaincy when he went to Toulon and I saw a video of him in the changing room, bossing these legends around in fluent French. He was giving everything. That summed up Jonny: he wanted to be the best at everything he did… and he usually was.