Jonny: My Autobiography

by Wilkinson, Jonny

  After all the criticism of the last few weeks, our forwards are now fired up, and against France, at last, it clicks. We concede an unfortunate early try, but after that we just kill it. We prepared for, and longed for, a dry day and it pours down. Our pack, however, are so dominant and they push forward so well that even in these difficult conditions, I can more or less pick and choose what I want to do and when.

  And when we drive forward so effectively, France have to put more and more forwards into the mauls to stop us. This means their backs have no inside support in defence, their wingers are forced to come up and help and it frees up the back field. Now we can kick into space and turn them.

  We get lineouts in return, we win them and we drive them. Our forwards smash rucks and dominate the physical battle, they pretty much ensure the victory is ours. I drop three goals near their line, we keep the scoreboard ticking; with 25 minutes to go, we are already more than a score ahead.

  And right at the end, as the clock is running down, standing on halfway as we reset a scrum, I glance at the scoreboard, which reads 24–7, and I spare myself a thought. At some point, Jonny, you’ve got to start embracing these situations. We’ve come back and as a team we have attacked it together; individually, you’ve had pressure on your shoulders and you’ve kicked all 24 points. We’ve now made it to the World Cup final. Just for once, give yourself a break. Even if it ends here, you’ve done OK.

  We play Australia in the final and so, of course, the scale of the Australian media coverage rockets. My problem is trying to avoid the damn stuff. I don’t know how they do it, but some of the guys sit there at breakfast and read it all. They consume stories about themselves or other people whether they’re rubbish or not. It must just mess your head around.

  Without wishing to appear rude, I try to sit somewhere slightly apart from them, like at the end of the table, and just keep my head down. I don’t want to see the press, but it’s all there, under my nose. I see they’ve got a picture of me on the front page, or the back, or both, and I don’t want to look, but at the same time, I’ve just got to know what it says about me. What’s the headline? I get annoyed at myself for taking a glimpse but I can’t help myself. And whatever I see, good or bad, it just adds to the pressure.

  It’s impossible to relax. The team room in the Manly Pacific, where I spend a fair bit of time, has a beautiful view of the beach and the ocean. But every time I look out, I see people in their hundreds, almost all in England shirts, on the street below. It makes you realise there’s so much to lose.

  Every day when we go for training, we walk through reception, out of the hotel and straight on to the coach, and the fans are there, all cheering and shouting and trying to pat you on the back. And when we get back, it’s the same. It might be three days until the game, but I can’t escape. I feel as if every day is match day. Increasingly, they chant my name, and although I love the support, it makes me feel under more pressure, thinking of all those people I could let down.

  I don’t actually enjoy the chanting. It’s draining everything I have. And it feels so uncomfortable with the team. This isn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want it to be about me. I feel as though I’m cheating them.

  On the Wednesday before the game, I’m in my last press conference before the final, probably the biggest I’ve ever sat in, and I hear about what’s being said and what’s being written. The journalists want to know if I am concerned about what Australia are going to do to stop me. What tactics might they use to take you out of the game? Their questions criticise the type of rugby we’ve been playing. They don’t realise this is a complete misunderstanding. Against France, we were dying for dry conditions so we could run the ball.

  I walk away from the top table at the end, nervous and caught up in it all, and a guy walks up to me and says good luck for the final. He puts his hand out to shake mine.

  Thanks very much, I say, returning the handshake. And at that moment, another guy next to him takes our picture with a professional-looking camera. It is only then that I register his white T-shirt, which has a picture of me in my kicking stance and a red circle with a line through it over the top and the words ‘Say no to kicking rugby’.

  There are two different worlds operating here. There are the people writing about it and then there are the people living it. The intensity of the environment makes the gap so obvious, and there is simply no way to make the media understand what we’re going through.

  But subconsciously, I take some of the press-conference questions back to my room with me, and I wonder will they try to take me out of the game?

  On our day off, some of the boys go down on the beach that we can see from the team room. I’d love to join them, but there’s no way. There are too many people with cameras and too many of them are press. I don’t want to give them the pictures they want. I might be making my life harder, but I refuse to let them win.

  So I take off with my dad. I meet him in the parking lot under the hotel, where he is waiting with his Australian mate Scotty and Scotty’s young son Ben, and we drive half an hour up the coast to a small cove. Not many people there, and none of them would know to shout my name. We have a picnic and mess about with a football. Just briefly, I have escaped.

  The following day, I try another escape with Bilks and manage to sneak on to the beach unnoticed. I wear a hat and sunglasses, and sit up against a wall, watching people walk past, not relaxing for a second, in constant fear that the next passer-by in an England shirt will be the one who blows my cover.

  It’s not that I’m trying to avoid having to talk to people. I’m merely trying to avoid this constant reminder of what lies ahead. I just want to think about something else for a few hours.

  The thing is, this is my goal. This is what I wrote down when I was ten, and all those other times. But I can’t remember the last time I smiled properly, and enjoyed it. I’m trying my best to embrace this amazing opportunity but I’m not even close.

  On the day of the final, I lie on my bed in the hotel reading a book by Michael Connelly, Angels Flight, which Blackie sent me. I’ve been speaking to Blackie regularly. He knew I’d be struggling this week.

  I look at the clock next to me and think to myself I’ve got four hours till we meet as a team and leave for the Telstra Stadium. Four hours is good, four hours is a lot of time. I feel like I could stay here all day, never leave this room.

  I get back to my book. I check the clock, read for a bit, check the clock, read for a bit. In bursts of a minute or two’s reading, I escape, and then it all comes back. The final.

  The clock says three hours to go. A part of me is thinking I want it to stay paused on this moment for the next two years, ten years, twenty years. I want it to stay at three hours to go because I don’t want to go any nearer to this game. And another part of me says I just want the time to disappear, I want to be on the field now. It’s a constant battle between wanting the moment I’ve trained for all my life to be here, and wanting it never to arrive.

  I make my phone calls, the ones I make before every game I play – to Mum and Dad, Sparks and Blackie. I talk about the game and how I feel, how I’m going to draw on a life’s work in about eighty-five minutes of rugby.

  Increasingly, I understand that in this game, there is no running away.

  Three hours later, the CD player on the way to the Telstra Stadium isn’t working properly. Mike Tindall always puts together a CD for the journey. He times it to finish with carefully chosen songs as we are approaching the stadium. Our stadium arrival song in Australia has been Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’, which is about ‘one shot, one opportunity’. On this occasion, though, the CD keeps skipping or sticking, and so we arrive instead to the sound of Dorian West’s favourite, The Clash and ‘Rock the Casbah’. Slightly different era, that. The boys are split on whether to find this amusing or to remain in ‘biggest game of our lives’ mindset.

  I have a slight feeling of inevitability about it, and it’s the same later when we are
standing in the tunnel, looking at Johnno, waiting for him to give his last address before we run out on to the pitch. This team has been together for five years, through thick and thin. We’ve stood together through strikes, through horrendous defeats and through glorious victories, whether we’ve been slagged off or praised. It seems now that this journey has always been bringing us here, so it doesn’t matter what music we have on the coach, and that’s where Johnno is when he turns to speak.

  Usually, he’ll say something strong, punctuated with horrendous swearing and powerful messages. This time, we might all be as nervous as hell, but we all know what we’ve been through. He knows that and he stops, looks at us and says nothing. There’s no need.

  The game starts badly for us. Australia put a high cross-field kick in to the goal area and Lote Tuqiri, with a big height advantage over Jason Robinson, takes it in the air and scores. It is astonishing that this ploy, which works so well, is never used again.

  We edge our way and start accumulating points. I see a hole in their defence as Lawrence muscles through the contact; he offers it to me on the inside and I’m clear. I have two options. Move it on outside to Jason, who could dart over in the corner, or inside to Ben Cohen, who could go in under the posts. I can’t see if Ben is being chased down by cover defence, so I go wider to Jason, knowing that with a half-decent pass he’ll get in. We get the try but I’m not sure if Ben will ever forgive me for the choice I took.

  We carry on accumulating and at half-time our lead is 14–5. Gradually, they begin to claw themselves back into it, and we are locked at 14–11. It doesn’t feel like anyone is going to score another try. In the last minute, Australia are awarded another random penalty from a scrum. Elton Flatley has a chance to level the scores. The pressure on this kick is remarkable, and Flatley shows stupendous mental strength to come through it. The problem then is that it lumbers us with extra time.

  I’ve never experienced extra time before. We don’t have a routine for the five-minute break while we’re waiting. We don’t go into the changing room, but stay on the field. It’s a bit like being in junior rugby again and I’m half expecting a plate of oranges to turn up.

  I don’t like the atmosphere. Everyone stands around, edgy, nervous, uncertain, looking at each other. Two minutes ago we had the game sewn up; now we are back to square one.

  Clive and the coaches go round with drinks. Despite all his powers of foresight, Clive hasn’t thought about this one. There is no third change of shirts.

  Clive walks over to me, and he seems nervous and tense, too. I am the guy he has spent five years working on to hit drop goals. Initially, when it was contrary to all my instincts, he almost begged me to try them, and ever since I was 20 years old, he has been forcing upon me the idea of taking my chances when they arise. By now, it’s been drilled into my core.

  Jonny, he says, we need three points, we need a drop goal.

  Thanks, Clive. In terms of ten minutes each way of do-or-die, incredibly tight rugby, you couldn’t have stated the obvious better if you tried.

  Mate, I say to him, choking back the ‘No shit, Sherlock’ response, I need to go and practise my kicking.

  I exit fast to the end of the field. I don’t know what the protocol is for this period of time. I don’t know if you are allowed to kick. But I hit a couple in front of the posts in readiness. It is 14–14, and we’re starting again.

  We soon get a penalty, 49 metres out and, there and then, all those late nights at Middlesbrough with Dave Alred become worth it. We are 17–14 up.

  We take our lead into the second half of extra time and we do well. We stay in their half, out of range. But then they get another penalty and again Flatley shows nerves of steel to score. We are tied, 17–17.

  We now have 95 seconds to score. We already know the plan – kick off long, so that they catch it deep. They won’t want to risk setting up the ball deep in their own half, not in penalty range, so they will kick it back.

  My restart is taken by Matt Rogers. He smashes the ball off the field and does a reasonable job of it, better than we hoped. We have a lineout 40 metres out, and a drop goal routine called ‘Zig-zag’ – get the ball to the middle of the field and truck it forward left and right until we’re close enough for the three points to be a formality.

  As we wait for the lineout, I don’t need to say anything to Catty outside me. After over ten years of this, he knows exactly what he has to do.

  But so do the Australians.

  Everyone now has to execute their roles to perfection. Steve Thompson has to hit his throw, which is called to the back of the lineout, so we can get perfect ball off the top. Matt Dawson fires it to me flat and I feed Catty. He sprints into their defence, gets smashed for his troubles but ensures the ball comes back on our side.

  I get myself into position. I feel like I might have to try this now. It’s over 40 metres. I tried one from this range earlier and it just missed. I’ve got a shot at it now, but it’s still not ideal.

  Then, a big let-off for us. As Daws goes to play the ball, a defender jumps out of the line slightly, Daws dummies and breaks through. At this point, my whole mentality changes. This has gone from a potshot to win us the game, to a sure-fire opportunity. It’s no longer let’s have a go. It’s now, this is it.

  He gets brought to ground by the full-back 15 metres out and we edge closer to the line until Neil Back is left standing at scrum half. I’ll have a go from here. We’ve got this close to the line, it’s a good shot.

  But then Johnno comes running in on the open side. Backy pops it up and he charges into contact taking plenty of Australian defenders with him. And Daws is back on his feet and playing nine.

  I’m now in as good a good position as I can hope for, 25 metres out, a little to the left, but with their defence ready to charge down the kick. So eager are they to close me down that they jump the gun and go offside. They put their hands up – they don’t want to concede the penalty – and the moment they do that, Daws passes the ball.

  The pressure is now reduced. They’ve backed off. I don’t have to worry about charge-downs or trying to get the kick up over raised hands.

  In my head now is nothing but my normal routine – go through the process of key focuses. As I drop it, the ball drops very slightly into me, tipping a bit forward. This means that it’ll spin a lot quicker, follow its point and I’m not going to kick it a long way. But the trade-off is it’s going to be accurate.

  The moment I hit it, I know I’ve given it enough. I look up and I know it’s not deviating from its line – it’s going straight through the middle.

  And then I’m running back, half thinking we’ve won but also oh God, they’ve done it to us twice already, they’ve still got 30 seconds, don’t let them take this away from us now. Not again.

  Their restart goes to Trevor Woodman, who takes it like a seasoned full-back. We recycle it slowly, all eyes on the clock. Daws goes right to Catty, and this is the moment I could freeze-frame for ever. Catty smashes the ball into the stands and the referee moves to put his whistle to his mouth. The ball is in the air, we are on the brink of achievement, we don’t have the victory yet but we know it’s coming. This is the milli-second in which I’d like to live my life. Stop the clocks.

  IF you are a perfectionist and you have set out a goal, it can be a challenging experience when you finally achieve it.

  The celebrations after Catty’s kick are just incredible. I find myself running around in a circle, jumping up and down with Will Greenwood, shouting World Cup! World Cup!

  A tidal wave of hugging and emotional outpouring is unleashed. Every single player and coach in the squad is out there on the field, totally consumed by the moment – apart from Mark Regan, that is, who has seen this as a very opportune moment to pull down Simon Shaw’s tracksuit bottoms.

  We do our laps of the pitch and I eventually find myself alongside Johnno, who drapes a long arm around my shoulder. Mate, he says, looking down to me, it’s all been
worth it, hasn’t it?

  After all those times of asking – Wilko, are you all right? – this seems to supply an answer. It seems to tie up the loose ends, to seal all those meetings, all those words on the pitch, all those experiences together. For once, I’m able to say you know what, I’m pretty damn good.

  And I am, but it’s not that simple. It never is.

  I am now a World Cup winner. The stadium is an expression of everything I wanted. People are supporting me, cheering me, giving me their respect. But what happens afterwards? What happens when we all leave here? What happens when I wake up tomorrow?

  The problem with reaching the peak of your tallest mountain is that there is only one way to go, and that is down the other side. Here I am, celebrating the achievement of my life’s goals and yet I can’t stop thinking it can only be downhill from here.

  The next morning, I go down to breakfast and Neil Back is reading the papers. Of all the days to look at what’s been written, I guess this should be it, but I can’t. I go straight back to looking the other way.

  I didn’t read a single paper in Australia, so I have no idea what to expect when we get back home. But not even the guys who did read the papers expected anything like this. At Heathrow, after our early morning arrival, we wait in the pre-arrivals area and the security people tell us there are quite a few people out there.

  Then we go through the doors and it’s mayhem. Thousands upon thousands of people cheer us through. It is absolutely unbelievable, incredible, even a touch frightening. I had no idea it had got like this back here.

  Yet I can’t help but feel hugely embarrassed by it. I hear my name being chanted over and over by the supporters, and it feels great but terrible at the same time. I don’t merit this treatment. I am so aware of all the mistakes I made in Australia and the way the guys cleared them up for me on the field. I can bring to mind instantly everything I did that was not good enough, yet so much extra attention is directed at me. I feel like a fraud.