Jonny’s new goal is Buddhism and quantum physics

The England legend has tackled his mental health issues his way, finds Maggie Alphonsi ‘Would I like to go back and be playing again? Not a chance. To move me from the here and now. No’

Having got to know him over the last couple of years, I am aware that being Jonny Wilkinson is not always easy. Partly that’s to do with his status – when we walk around foreign cities before our punditry duties, Jonny is mobbed by fans and well-wishers keen for a photo, or to talk about that dropped goal from 2003.

Mainly, though, it’s what’s going on inside. Jonny is incredibly intelligent, warm and friendly, but his mind works in overdrive, often in ways that have made his life and career more difficult. When we meet to discuss his new mental health campaign, it is clear that his own struggles have shaped his journey. It is a fascinating and illuminating conversation, and it makes you realise the extent of what he was going through, while accomplishing rugby feats few could dream of.

Now he has found a solution as unique as he is, in a combination of Buddhism and quantum physics.

After retiring, he was “looking for a feeling of exploration of what’s life about”. Practising Buddhism offered that, but was “too ethereal”.

The solution? He began to study quantum physics, keen to balance his exploration of faith with scientific understanding.

“At the time everything had to be practically experienced for me and I needed it in black and white,” he explains. “Buddhism was a

floating cloud and I couldn’t reach it. I wanted to know how I got from down here to up there. What I needed was something concrete. And quantum physics is about trying to create that bridge of actual experience by going deeper into what makes the world around us. I’m still studying it but I don’t like to say that because it has a connotation of work involved, and it’s not work. But I am studying you right now.”

The last comment is followed by a big laugh – Wilkinson may be exploring heavy topics, but he is keeping it light. And it seems to work for him – he is clearly extremely happy. He has just turned 40 and has a young daughter who takes up a lot of his time. He still works with England and will join them if they progress past the World Cup quarter-finals in Japan, but he now happily spends his days “doing all kind of things, yet doing very little”.

This contentedness has been hard-earned. When I ask him if he would like to be transported back 16 years ago, to when he was a 24-year-old who had just become a national hero by kicking that late dropped-goal to defeat Australia in the World Cup final in Sydney, he shakes his head.

“Would I like to go back and be playing for England and be talked about in that way, versus the here and now? Not a chance,” he says. “I wouldn’t dream of it. To move me from the here and now – no.

“Everyone says it’s so much harder when you’re older and say things like ‘those days at school were the best of my life’. Well, that’s a myth in my experience.”

Part of this are the difficulties he had to battle with during his playing days. Wilkinson does not try and hide the anguish he went through – the anxiety that at times came close to overwhelming him; the time spent locked in a dressingroom toilet, hoping he would not have to take the field and play the role of World Cup-winning fly-half.

It became particularly acute in the build-up to matches, with Wilkinson realising he was “going down a rabbit hole” as the anxiety threatened to be too much for him.

“I was a guy who was talking about being the best he can be but I couldn’t do that through having a stressed body and a completely messed up mind,” he says. “I thought at the end of more stress and suffering was this pot of joy.”

The pot of joy never arrived, even after the World Cup was won. What strikes me listening to Jonny