Jonny Wilkinson This lot are quicker, faster, stronger than 2003 team
World Cup hero Jonny Wilkinson on the legacy of 2003 victory and new breed of England player ‘We challenged our barriers where they were, but they have moved. Everyone is more complete’
If the 2003 England World Cup-winning side are about to lose their mantle of “first and only” – which the 1966 football team never have – Jonny Wilkinson will surrender the title without a struggle.
“If I’m going to carry that World Cup victory in my backpack, I’m going to need stronger legs than I’ve got, or I’m just going to end up experiencing a life of less and less and less,” Wilkinson says. The dropped goal that was heard around the world in extra time at the 2003 final in Sydney was Wilkinson’s signature act in a stellar career. The 16 years since that night have taught him a lot about life and rugby.
“My job now is to be an example to the guys that after rugby, no matter how great rugby seemed, life gets better,” he says. “I either open that door or shut it. Good luck guys, enjoy it, because it’s terrible after [retirement]. If I’m exploring my life, I’ve left that well behind. Lifting that [trophy] and holding it with me only slows me down.”
But there is another side to this. Wilkinson is a consultant to England’s kickers and his eyes burn with the old intensity when you ask him about the links between Eddie Jones’s team and the World Cup final sides of 2003 and 2007, when they lost to South Africa in Paris. In that context of the 16 years, Wilkinson says of the 2019 vintage: “They are not better than us, they are better because of us. That’s the beautiful thing.”
To explain: even members of Sir Clive Woodward’s triumphant outfit think England attained new heights in the Yokohama semi-final against New Zealand. Wilkinson, as with his playing career, threads it all together. He says: “If you had all our guys [from 2003] and sent them back to their mid-twenties, then threw them into this squad and said, ‘Let’s compete’, I think you’d find something very similar, because of the internal make-up [of those 2003 players].
“When you compare the external stuff, the skills and the speed, then yeah, it’s a different game. Did we ever play that quick, did we ever play like that? We never really knew how to. We played the game as we saw it.
“We challenged our barriers where they were. I think the barriers have moved a long way. Yeah, these guys, it’s a new generation, they’re quicker, they’re faster, stronger. Everyone’s more complete. Whatever number’s on your back you’re able to do everything. For me, my desires are over. My desire was to be as complete as possible. So whatever you threw at me – if
I had to make a big tackle, fine, if I had to kick this way or that way, do this, do that – pass, fitness, that was what I wanted.”
Wilkinson was centre stage for England’s only global triumph and he was around when the national set-up lost its way. The 15-6 defeat by the Springboks in the 2007 final disguised a loss of influence at international level, with the nadir of 2011-15 the backdrop to Jones’s appointment.
Wilkinson, however, defends the legacy of the preceding decade: “What we did in 2003 opened the door for people younger – maybe at the age of [12], like Owen Farrell and George Ford – to go ‘Wow, these guys can pass left to right hand’. Maybe you’ve got props looking at [Phil] Vickery thinking, ‘Jeez, he gets around the field’. Suddenly by the age of 21 you’ve got incredible players.
“I look at these guys [now] and in every position, they’re challenging that stereotype. It’s like, ‘You’re a prop. And? You’re a winger? Yeah, well, fine’. “They seem to be more interested in continuing that. You saw after the [All Blacks] game when they won it, it was like, we’re going to get better, let’s get better, that means recovery, that means getting back to the hotel. But not in an enclosed, reclusive, introverted way, because they get out and about, they’re happy to relax and have a coffee, that’s part of their life now.
“I was trying to do the completeness by shutting myself in a dark room, and just researching. These guys are exploring life and exploring what they’re capable of.”
The “dark room” reference encapsulates Wilkinson’s talent for self-analysis. His philosophy nowadays is a form of present moment awareness where past and future are not allowed to govern thought (“Everyone thinks that the now is going to be found in the future. Good luck with that”). Hence his observation about 2003: “It has just got nothing to do with life. It’s just something I picked up along the way. If you picked it up, you can drop it. You start getting into recognition and reward, which you think is going to be great, but never ever gets close to the feeling of being in that unknown space, on the edge, which is the joy of playing rugby.
“It’s all about how great it’s going to be when you get your reward, and the answer is, ‘it’s not, it won’t be, it won’t match up to what it’s steering you away from’; and I think Eddie does a great job of making sure that doesn’t reach [or invade the mindset], and that it gets drowned out pretty quickly.”
Of his role with Farrell and Ford, Wilkinson says: “I’ve been working with them since I got out here, doing the usual, and when I was back in England we were doing stuff over the phone, but I don’t speak to them hugely about what they’re up to in the greater scheme of things, unless they want to, and to be honest they look as though they’re more than happy with where they’re going, and I’m sort of thinking, ‘Well, what can I add?’
“The only thing is from the emotional side, because I’ve been there and experienced the fallout, and the other side of it. But I said this before, they’re way ahead of where we were, where I was, because reputation isn’t bigger than performance for them. Simple as that.
“And I got caught up in that gap where I was like, ‘What will this do for me, or the team, if we win this?’ because my idea was, I meant to be the best, which is a comparative thing. These guys seem to me to be interested in what they’re capable of. Which has no comparative.”
But how about this for a comparison, or a revelation. Wilkinson claims that in 2003 some of England’s senior players were glad that Australia centre Elton Flatley kicked his 80thminute penalty to equalise at 14-14 in regular time.
Wilkinson says of Martin Johnson and Lawrence Dallaglio in particular: “Those guys just loved battling. They loved it. They would have done it for another two hours in that game. For me I was a little bit caught up in the reputation thing.
“I got the impression that most of our team wanted Flatley to kick that last goal because they were thinking: ‘We don’t want to win because your guy missed, we want to win because we won it’. I got the impression those guys were excited. ‘Let’s get in there, we can go and win it [in extra time].’”
The coup de grace – his dropped goal – is secure in legend, and he wants to leave it there.
Land Rover is Official Worldwide Partner of Rugby World Cup 2019 #Landroverrugby