Jonny Wilkinson: 'From the very beginning, I was driven by huge fear'

Within seconds of sitting down with Jonny Wilkinson, it became abundantly clear that milestones and achievements in his stellar rugby career are things that are very much past tense.

It’s 10 years ago this very weekend when he last laced up, guiding Toulon with aplomb around the Stade de France to see off Castres and complete the Top 14/European Heineken Cup double he took with him into retirement.

A decade retired. He never realised. “I didn’t know that,” he shrugged, going on to explain to RugbyPass that the highlights reel from his former life isn’t something that lives on in him. “I have got a different relationship with me of the past.

“I can call on that if I need it but it’s not who I am. I’m exploring where my opportunity is and that’s great. That has been a big part of the journey. When you are tied up with who you were, essentially when you get older, you’re losing. Getting older is losing whereas when you are just more here and now everything is a bit brighter.”

The unawareness of his 10-year-retirement-after-the-double-win anniversary doesn’t mean he is aloof to the players he signed off with. Toulon, at that time, was a cosmopolitan melting pot.

Mornings like Thursday help. “Definitely. Just what the guys are talking about, hearing those stories from people you look up to who are now not doing what you thought was the be-all and end-all and they are happy and thriving would be a message that would bring so much grounding to me as a player.”

Switching to the modern-day game, how does he view the leading out-halves who have carved it up this season in a Gallagher Premiership where this weekend’s four semi-finalists have now become two June 8 finalists? “Brilliant. What a great time to be an England coach with players like that.

“Young guys coming through. Fin and Marcus (Smith) and then the likes of George (Ford), Owen (Farrell) all in there. Finn Russell playing in that, it’s great to see him on the English scene. But also Orlando Bailey behind him, brilliant. It’s exciting. You need a good 10.”

Having been at Newcastle from 1997 through to 2008, Wilkinson spent six years in France after he decided to move across the Channel. It was at a time when he could combine playing French club rugby with England selection, a situation that no longer exists for the likes of the Racing 92-bound Farrell.

Wilkinson reckoned Farrell will be inspired by what he discovers overseas. “He has been drawn there for lots of reasons, lots of it is rugby but lots of it his own personal, amazing journey in his life. It’s all connected, and I think he is going to go there open and ready to fully experience it all.

“It [France] is a cultural thing, there is an opening of your mind, your values, your acceptance of other ways, inspired by new possibilities of the way things can be done and that balance is going to bring even more from him.”

As regards the game in general, Wilkinson suggested its evolution as a fully-fledged professional sport is still happening. “I think it’s on a journey, on a journey. It’s unfolding and it will find itself but maybe this is the path it has to go through to find it.”

That path might tempt Wilkinson into a crossover. He enjoys assisting Steve Borthwick’s England kickers now and again but the more he hears about the Red Roses, the more he is intrigued by women’s rugby and the growth of the English women’s team who are now under the baton of John Mitchell just over a year out from Rugby World Cup 2025.

“I do watch, and I fortunately get the chance to meet a lot of women players as well,” he enthused. “A really good friend of mine works with the women’s team doing the skills coaching and some of the kicking and I work with the men’s team, and we are constantly swapping stories.

“It’s amazing. It’s like we are both sort I’d love to come and work over there so hopefully I can get a chance to get a bit deeper into it and go and see what it is all about, but they seem to be doing perfectly fine without me.”