It could only have been this way. How else was he supposed to say goodbye to the shores that made him, than with the kicking of a few goals, the initiation of a couple of tries, the winning of a game, the hoisting of a trophy?

In the end it was almost too poetic to bear. A last victory, in a big final against Saracens, the team he made his full debut against, for Newcastle, on 27 December 1997, aged 18. They won that game at Kingston Park, albeit in a closer affair than this, and so he was launched not only into a career that would make a legend of him but towards the first of his many trophies.

Saracens and Newcastle were vying then for the first Premiership title. That win set Newcastle on their way to it, in a season in which Saracens won the cup. We thought it might be the start of something for both sides. Actually, it proved to be the start of something for Jonny Wilkinson.

He leaves behind a hopeful scene in English rugby. Opposite him here was Owen Farrell, the man seemingly entrusted to carry his legacy onwards. As if that were not poetic enough, for the final 20 minutes on came Charlie Hodgson, the man unfortunate enough to have filled his boots after that great triumph 11 years ago that needs no further description.

A part of us may wish that Wilkinson could strut his stuff beyond the end of this season. By the closing stages here, he was playing as precisely and authoritatively as ever. It is the mark of his tireless dedication that he still looks fit to go on shaping games at the highest level, organising team-mates, slotting goals, winning trophies.

But it is the mark of the great man that he knows it is best to leave at the peak of his powers, with the audience wanting more and fate still on his side. There will be one last hurrah next weekend in the Top 14 final – who knows, maybe one last trophy – but that will be it. A nation will feel as if a part of its heritage has gone.

When he left the field two minutes before the end, Frenchman and Englishman alike stood and chanted “Jonny! Jonny!” He is nothing if not universally loved.

But for the best part of half an hour, he was struggling to find a way into the game, concerning himself with chores that some may think beneath him, but he would say were his very raison d’être: clearance kicks and tackles on men 35kg heavier than him.

Then in the 29th minute it clicked briefly. Wilkinson dashed blind and fed Matt Giteau, who set up Toulon’s first try with a kick that looked miscued but kicked up outrageously in Drew Mitchell’s favour. You would not be surprised if  it was deliberate, though. He and Jonny have probably spent hours in the Provençal gloaming perfecting the miscue that kicks up on its second bounce.

Then we had it: an encore of the moment that will forever define his legend. It might not have been 30 seconds before the end of extra-time in a World Cup final – we’ll have to settle for a minute before half-time in the final Heineken Cup final – but there it was again, the ball returned to him from a ruck, then dropped precisely to the floor, the right foot cocked back, the ball struck so sweetly, time suspended so exquisitely. And then came the roar. OK, it was not 2003, but it was a roar and it was poetry, and if you were English and born before, say, 1995, you were transported back to that halcyon time.

Let us leave aside for now any talk about where he stands in the pantheon of great rugby players. It was never about Wilkinson the player. It is Wilkinson the man who has seduced the rugby world – and beyond. Players come and go in sport, but with only a tiny few does the departure tug on heart strings. Everyone knows where they were when you-know-what happened. And now the man central to that legendary moment is leaving the stage.

“I’d like to take a bit of time out to realise where I am after all this,” said Wilkinson. “Maybe this is an opportunity to relax a little bit and say: ‘Look, it’s not do or die from now on.’ I’ve lived for 17 years where every weekend your life hangs in the balance. It might be nice that that’s no longer the case, waking up on a Saturday morning without that horrible feeling in your stomach and not having to worry about all the what ifs.”

Jonny Wilkinson wins his and Toulon’s second Heineken Cup in as many seasons, then turns 35 the next day. You would think he will get at least a cake. In life, a man tends to deserve the manner in which his birthday cake is presented. However it is done, though, you will not catch Wilkinson complaining. May he have that cake and eat it. And when he comes to review the past 35 years, may he find peace at last for the next 35.