Rugby World Cup 2003: I have never watched our victory says England hero ...

“No, I never have,” said Wilkinson, who missed the gala celebration dinner to

salute the 2003 squad three weeks ago, only joining his former teammates the

following day after playing for Toulon the previous night.

“I’ve seen the highlights and key moments, but have never sat down to watch

the match. I’ve tried to preserve the quality of the memories I have which

are wrapped up in the feel, the senses, the smell, noises and atmosphere.

“I’d rather keep it there and then in that first person experience rather than

watching it back, which can taint the memory. When you watch a game after

you played it, it was never as bad as you thought, but it was never as good

as you thought either. I want to keep this one exactly as I remember it on

the day, which was one hell of an experience.”

Wilkinson is like no other. He is an intense, brooding character, at one

remove from the throng, delightfully polite but wrapped up in his own

experiences. There is no resting place, no sense of settlement until he has

finished playing and even then you imagine his questing mind will alight on

something else to trouble his sleep. He has compartmentalised the 2003

adventure, stored it away as a reference point but no more than that.

“It does genuinely feel like a life time ago,” said Wilkinson who has no plans

to mark the actual 10 year anniversary point with anything special.

“So much so that to a degree it feels like a different person. But the

preciousness of it doesn’t go away. It hasn’t lost any of its power or

brightness because time has passed. I look back on it with huge fondness.”

Wilkinson was a key figure in helping drive the standards that enabled England

to rule the world prior to actually winning the tournament itself. He

reveals that the drop goal, a rather wonky effort off his ‘wrong’ right

foot, was not the snatched, last-gasp effort it might have appeared but the

culmination of months of preparation. It was no fluke.

“We spent years and years with that team working on a framework to manufacture

three points when needed,” said Wilkinson. “We demanded that people knew

their roles within it, and also everyone else’s roles, so that it was as

professional and ruthless a manoeuvre as it could possibly be.

“All that hard work we did over the years we were obliged to put into practice

in that one passage of play. The time when we got it exactly right, when

everyone performed their role as expected, was the time when we needed it

most. Many destinies came together at one point. It was our time.” And so it

proved. Wilkinson himself admits to be overwhelmed by the act itself as well

as the aftermath. Others reached for a few celebratory beers. Jonny looked

inside himself and got as dizzy and disorientated as those of his teammates

who had opted for alcoholic release. Wilkinson certainly felt the pressure

of having to nail the kick, all the more so as he had already missed

previously.

“I’d had a couple of shots before which were very much pot shots, having a dig

almost,” said Wilkinson. “They weren’t quite hit and hope, more if we get

this one right it could go over. But for this one, I was thinking that

because of where the guys had put me, I cannot miss, this has to go over. I

knew it wasn’t going to be the most powerful kick but it was going to be

accurate. I knew that it was going over. What surprised me was I actually

got lost in that moment. I didn’t know where I was. I remember

half-celebrating, but not really. It felt surreal, a dream-like situation.

I had to ask ‘is this really happening?’” It had happened, a scrambled

clearance from Australia’s re-start and it was all over. For Wilkinson,

though, it was only just beginning, the painful journey to make sense of it

all and to cope with that dreadful turn of ill-fortune.

“There was a private party for the guys but by that point I was spent,” said

Wilkinson. “Everything had taken its toll. That night was the moment I

embraced it the most because I knew that before I woke up the following

morning that’s as good as it would probably feel. It was as fresh as

possible and I was still living it. That surreal dream-like state stayed

with me the rest of the night. On the flip side, it would have been nice to

say the pressure was off but unfortunately I put the pressure back on to

myself. I was disturbed the next morning by how quickly the atmosphere

changed. We were having breakfast and it was quiet. There were families

there who had nothing to do with us. They were talking about what they were

going to get up to for holiday. You realised that winning the World Cup may

be the biggest thing for you right then, but it wasn’t for everyone else.

“Each day that passes it will become less and less important and that’s life.

After all that time and effort, I thought what now? Why hasn’t my life

changed hugely? That was my misunderstanding. My misguided approach was

believing that I’d wake up and things would be very different.”

Wilkinson has endured longer than any of them with only Mike Tindall still

actively involved as player-coach at Gloucester. Wilkinson’s body has

finally been brought to heel and he has enjoyed an injury-free four years at

Toulon. He keeps in touch with a few of the squad — Richard Hill, Will

Greenwood, Iain Balshaw and Tindall — salutes Martin Johnson as ‘the man

without whom the World Cup win would not have happened,” and has his mind

set on helping Toulon reach their own Holy Grail by winning the French

championship.

Wilkinson recently married, and in typically unobtrusive circumstances with

only a couple of witnesses. He has no need of the limelight to sustain him.

The roar of the crowd is for others. Jonny Wilkinson remains a man apart, and

is all the more revered as a result

Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/25059124

Rugby World Cup 2003: I have never watched our victory says England hero ...