On the eve of England's 2011 World Cup quarter-final against France in Auckland, Jonny Wilkinson received a fax from his long-time friend and guru, Steve Black. "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." In Jonny's case, Black was employing a little poetic licence. There is not a single English rugby follower who will ever forget Wilkinson's World Cup-clinching drop goal in 2003, nor the utter delirium it prompted.
Finally, it is all over. Wilko and out. If anyone deserves a restful Test retirement it is Jonny. He did not so much lay down his body for his country as donate it entirely to Twickenham, limb by limb, joint by joint and organ by organ. Even had he not broken every points-scoring record known to man he would still have gone down in history, along with Lewis Moody, as the ultimate English patient. Many will be quietly relieved he has now walked away, rather than be carted off to the knacker's yard.
Perhaps, too, a farewell to his international career will help him to locate the inner peace he has often found elusive. Even as a seven-year-old boy on his way to mini-rugby sessions at Farnham RFC he would frequently be sick en route, in a lay‑by or in a hedge near the clubhouse carpark. The intense pressure he placed upon himself to be the absolute best never relented.
"Right through to the end of the last World Cup game, I still couldn't bear the thought of not being perfect or letting people down," he confessed in his recent autobiography. "When you're obsessive, like me, searching for something unattainable can become unhealthy … it's like falling through the air and grabbing at the clouds."
For those of us fortunate enough to follow Jonny's 91-cap England career from start to finish, this sometimes made him tricky to interview. Sometimes, as he murmured away in tortured sentences which rarely had an ending, you just wanted to put your arm around him and persuade him to relax, perhaps with a sneaky beer or two. It swiftly became apparent that England's ever-modest hero could not allow himself to do so. The 24-hour personal video camera he felt was forever fixed upon him, monitoring his commitment, would not permit it. It turned him into one of the most extraordinary sportsmen this country has ever seen. He was polite to a fault, generous with his time, the epitome of a world‑class professional sportsman. Why, then, did we so often feel sorry for him?
The impact he made on the sport of rugby union was a completely different matter. In his early England days, before the injuries and the mental toll began to bite, he redefined the definition of a world-class No10. As late as the mid-90s, fly-halves were not expected to make more than the occasional tackle, let alone impose themselves physically. Wilkinson changed all that, to the point where big forwards thought twice about thundering down his channel. Even as a callow youth behind a top-drawer, heavy-duty pack of forwards, he stood out. Add in his prodigious goalkicking off either foot and his ability to fling out long pin-point passes and you had a modern-day Wilson of the Wizard.
Sometimes, even if he could not admit it to himself, he did achieve perfection. The mental image of him sitting, weary but happy, on a concrete step beneath the stands in Bloemfontein, having scored all 27 of England's points in a famous win over the Springboks in 2000, will never fade. I particularly remember, too, his Twickenham comeback in 2007 when he scored another 27 points, including a try, in a 42-20 victory against Scotland. As he flew in at the right corner to score, half-bird half-plane, it briefly seemed as if the aching years of rehab and misery had never happened.
And then, of course, there was the 2003 final in Sydney. We have, as Black intimated, long forgotten all the drop-goal chances he botched but the still photographs of the one which mattered will forever be etched in a million imaginations. Would his life have changed for the better had he missed? It is an interesting theory, based on Wilkinson's reluctance to be regarded as a hero and his subsequent realisation – particularly painful for a perfectionist – that he could never improve on that particular snapshot in time. It would have haunted him for life in a very different sense had the ball sailed wide. Better, maybe, to let sleeping drops lie.
There is still time, at least, to catch him in a Toulon shirt. He will give no less of himself and, the recent World Cup aside, he has seemed a happier individual this year. Maturity has finally taught him he cannot arrange everything just so: "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 day you're the villain, while I have been the same guy all along."
It was entirely in character that, as part of his farewell message, he thanked the World Cup coaches with whom he did not always chime. Strip away the 1,246 Test points – placing him a close second in the all-time standings to New Zealand's Dan Carter – and you have the ultimate selfless athlete who never lost sight of rugby's core values. Any kid wanting to represent his country should read Jonny's own verdict on his remarkable career.
"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. What I am proud of is I have searched for the best of me and I have been a team man without fail." Thanks for the memories, Jonny. English supporters will never forget how you made them feel.
