Jonny: My Autobiography (60 page)

In the 65th minute, Matt Banahan arrives on the pitch next to me and I see that I am being substituted. I’ve picked up dead leg and have knackered myself out running on it. It’s not a bad call. But the score is 16-7, still a long way back for us and my thoughts are simple: I hope to God we win. My individual feelings don’t yet register.

We do continue the comeback, but not far enough. We finish 19-12 down and, just like that, our World Cup dream is snuffed out.

Afterwards, I take a look around the ground, I stand there absorbing it all, the stadium emptying and the French celebrating. This is Eden Park, New Zealand, the end of the World Cup, the last thing I see of a World Cup from on the field. I try to take it in. This trip has been at times terrible and definitely bizarre. And now, all too soon, it’s over.

That’s my last World Cup chapter, finished.

When I think back to that young lad playing mini rugby at Farnham, vomiting in the hedge through nerves, crying before games because he couldn’t bear the thought of not getting it right, I wonder seriously how much has changed. I also truly wonder how the hell I ended up where I am now. Right through to the end of that last World Cup game, I still couldn’t bear the thought of not being perfect. What if I didn’t get it right? I still couldn’t bear the thought of letting people down. The difference is that I finished off doing all this in front of thousands of people, millions of people.

On the eve of our France quarter-final, I received another fax from Blackie. This is what he wrote: ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Make us all feel wonderful. We’ll never forget.’

No surprises – but once again he found something that made perfect sense to me.

For so much of my career, I’ve allowed myself to get massively caught up in the desire to try and control everything, especially the way people think of me. The longer it has gone on, the more I have seen how one day you’re the hero, the next you’re the villain, while I have been the same guy all along.

And all along, I feel as though my story has been carved from contradictions. I learned at mini rugby I wanted to be perfect, yet I have lived since then with both a desire for perfection and the knowledge that it’s unattainable. When you’re obsessive, like me, searching for something unattainable can become unhealthy.

Controlling my reputation and basing my fulfilment upon perfect outcomes – it’s like falling through the air and grabbing at the clouds. What Blackie’s fax says to me is that it’s not the facts, figures and results that matter, it’s how you make people feel.

Yet I know that I have spent many years trying to clutch onto things. Until 2003, I followed a path; it felt right, it
was
right, it always felt as if I was moving forwards. I sometimes think that ever since then, I’ve been trying to find my way back onto that path, trying to uncover my own quick-fix solution to get back to where I was back then.

Too often, England wanted the quick fix from me too. I was put back in to sort things out and it’s probably my fault I let that happen. All those hours and hours of training, working on small skills, evasive ability, footwork, speed, handling skills, trying to develop as a player – what’s really disappointed me is that so very rarely have I been able to use that. When things aren’t right, it always has to come back to getting into the opposition half and keeping the scoreboard moving. I became more of a stereotype than I ever intended or wanted to be.

My fault again. I had a reputation and I wanted to be the person who lived up to it, who always came through when the pressure was on and the
team needed it. After the World Cup win in 2003, I spent the next three years pretty much completely out of the game and so when I came back, I was desperate to be that person again. I never had nor gave myself the time to build again.

Ultimately I suppose I’ve been fighting a mental disposition, fighting who I am. Yet I know that my obsessiveness is what made me, what helped me towards whatever I have achieved.

I think of the two times I went out with Inga in Auckland – during the Lions tour in 2005 when I was mentally at a real low, and during the last World Cup when I was more mature and happier. Things have changed in between, yet it’s almost the same battle taking place inside me. Many of the issues from 2005 are still there in 2011. It’s just that I’ve become more mature, more grounded and adept at dealing with them. I can’t change it, maybe I realise now that I can’t afford to. I still strive to be perfect because it’s what gives me my edge over others on the field. I just understand better that I’m not perfect and I know that’s OK.

But if, as Blackie says, this is all about how I have made people
feel
, then I hope that I have made them feel good about rugby whilst I’ve been playing. The rugby supporters I have encountered around the world have been incredibly generous to me. I just hope that I have made them feel that there is an integrity in how I have behaved and what I have given to the sport, in the respect I have always had for my teammates and the honour I have felt in representing my country.

For me, this is massively important too: now my World Cups are done, I know I have given everything to this sport. Not just every match or even every training session, but every second, every moment, every opportunity. I could not have given more. I can’t live with regrets and thank God that in this respect, I have none.

If I could review the footage of that 24-hour camera, then I could sign it off happily.

And of course, the camera doesn’t stop after the World Cup. The day after France beat us, Harley Crane picked me up and we drove a couple of hours way out west, climbed up a huge sand dune and down the other side to get to a beautiful beach. And we played hacky sack together, just him and me for a long time before going for a swim in the sea. It was a trip back to the old times; so much fun.

But two days later, on the Tuesday, I arrived back in England. I was back in Toulon on the Wednesday and back on the field on the Saturday for the last half hour in a big win over Perpignan.

Being back just reinforced what is important. There have been times in my career when my team has won everything and there have been others when we’ve come up short. However, the results, the scoreboard, the outcomes are totally superseded by the journeys that took me to them. Winning and losing don’t last. What do are friendships, the team, giving all you’ve got, memories, embracing the moment.

This is what’s bigger: it’s being in that changing-room after the 2007 World Cup quarter-final with Mike Catt and Martin Corry and sharing those special few minutes; it’s the wow moments alone with Dave Alred, kicking balls with some of the best stadia in the world all to ourselves; it’s hearing Inga fail to choke back the tears as he said goodbye to our Newcastle team, in a dressing-room awash with mutual respect; it’s being with the Toulon boys listening to the Black Eyed Peas, being able to look them in the eye and knowing what we’ve been through together; it’s sharing the daily path towards getting better with Blackie and Sparks and Mum and Dad too, living it, fighting for everything that mattered to us; it’s sharing the battle with inspirational people like Jamie Noon, Sonny Bill, Hilly, Pat Lam, Felipe
Contepomi, and the knowledge that whether or not you see these guys ever again, it lasts forever. It’s even the defeats, the 76-0 in Australia, the third Lions Test in Sydney three years later; whether it’s the worst time in the world or the best, it’s still about banking on each other, standing tall and helping each other to get through it. Emotionally, that’s a special place to be.

I feel I made the most of being in those privileged places and that is why I’m proud of what I have done. I’m not necessarily proud of the World Cups and the Grand Slams won or lost, the amount of points I scored, this record or that. That doesn’t come into it. What I am proud of is I have searched for the best of me and I have been a team man without fail. I made it all matter to me and I gave it my very best shot. Who in this world ever regretted doing that?

When we arrived in Newcastle, initially we only had the one car, so my first day, my wife Kate drove me to training. Eight in the morning and there he was, taking a shot at goal. We did training and he kicked some more. Everyone went for lunch, apart from Jonny, who maybe had a quick bite to eat but basically kicked all through lunch, too. We trained a bit more in the afternoon, and when I’d showered and Kate had come to pick me up in the afternoon, he was still in the same spot, kicking the goals. Kate said to me how come you can’t be that dedicated?

I only worked it out when I was over in the UK, why he kept so much to himself in public. After one of the autumn internationals, we were in the BA lounge in Heathrow and he was tucked right out the back, and even there he was hassled by people. Everyone wanted a piece of him; it was like he was public property.

But one thing I felt was so hard for him was the media. No one gave him
that freedom to be able to get over the injuries and get himself right. He was always judged on his performances in the past, and obviously in the 2003 World Cup. And when he wasn’t playing for England, he was being judged against the incumbent ten. That was real tough.

I remember the slight young man Jonny was when he came into the England set-up, and I could really relate to it. In 1994, when I got my first international cap, nobody really knew me. Will Carling took me under his wing, and gave me that sense that I did fit in and could feel part of the team.

Back then, you had to win respect from some players. Until you’d got their respect on the rugby pitch, they wouldn’t talk to you. When I turned up at my first club, Bath, I remember I threw a pass out to Jerry Guscott and he literally stopped in the middle of the training session and just threw the ball back at me. That’s the way it worked back then.

So I knew how tough it was for Jonny, coming into an environment like that, especially at number ten. When you have to be the boss, it’s so, so hard as a youngster or, as in my case, a foreigner, coming in and shouting the odds. You need people around you who can push you through – as Will Carling did with me.

I think the massive change for Jonny was on the social side of things. Back in the early days, he would have a few beers on a Saturday night. Phil Greening loved taking him under his wing. But he wasn’t a hero then.

By 2003, he just couldn’t relax off the field. He was so obsessed with what he had to do and how he had to do it that he didn’t really want to go out. Hence Hilly and I insisted on taking him out on those Thursdays – just to get him out of the hotel. I don’t think he got the balance right between rugby and the social side of things. He got too cooped up in his room. I still respected him enormously for it, because that’s the way he wanted to do it.

And he achieved what he wanted. Totally. He was the best in the world. And he got there through that mental strength, the mental ability to do that hard graft. So everybody had a huge respect for him and we relied on him. There’s no beating around the bush here, the team relied on him. In the same breath, he relied on us. He relied on the team to put him in those positions to win us games. But the respect for him was massive.

By 2007, I felt the expectation was huge, greater than ever. For the World Cup, there was massive emphasis on ‘Jonny Wilkinson’. In 2003, it wasn’t just about him; it was about that whole England side. In 2007, England needed him just to get to the knockout stages of the competition. That’s how big the expectation was on his shoulders. After not having it for four years, it was right on his doorstep again. I think he found it quite daunting.

When Jonny arrived in Toulon, it was great. Look at how he trains. It’s a real example to everyone. I know loads of people who train a lot, but he is unbelievable. He doesn’t stop.

And he’s a gentleman. It takes some time to get to know him, but he’s loved by everyone here. I always say he’s one of the few, maybe the only, English guy loved by all the French.