Jonny: My Autobiography

by Wilkinson, Jonny

  I make one exception, though, when England spend a day training with the Leeds Rhinos. I love rugby league and these guys have just won the Superleague Grand Final. The opportunity to meet players like Kevin Sinfield and Keith Senior is not to be missed.

  What really strikes me is the quality of the coaching. A whole morning’s session is spent working on how to catch and pass – not lineouts or scrums, which may take place twice or twelve times in a game, but this very basic skill. We catch and pass throughout every single game we ever play, and simply take it for granted.

  For passing, they accentuate the use of the high leading elbow, which gives you a barrier against defenders who are aiming to smash you, and a sharp limb, which is harder to smash against.

  For catching, they accentuate the position of the hands round the ball, so you are immediately ready to deliver the next pass. They get us throwing rubber rings to each other to work on how to move our hands to get them in the optimal position.

  This is all coaching from the school of Dave Alred and Blackie. It’s not a case of you need to work on your basic skills. It’s more this is how you do it. It’s not you need to improve your performance in this area. It’s this is how to improve it.

  I just wish I was able to make use of all this by actually playing.

  By mid-March, the Six Nations campaign is nearly over, and on the horizon is the British Lions tour of New Zealand, led by Clive Woodward. I want to be on that plane.

  First, I need rugby, regular week-in, week-out rugby. Rob Andrew tells me that he doesn’t think I need any time on the bench as I did last time. He says I’m going to put you straight back in.

  This is music to my ears. I didn’t much like being on the bench. I start against Quins down at The Stoop, and it feels pretty good, great to be back. I love the energy and buzz of it, until just after the half hour, when it happens again.

  Quins make a break and feed inside to their prop. Coming across, I fly in and smash him on to his back and immediately try to contest for the ball. Simultaneously, someone tries to clear me out of the ruck, but slightly from the side, and I feel the same right knee and the same popping sensation. My head is sticking out from the ruck, our bench are only 10 metres away and I just yell at them. I think I’ve done it again.

  I have now played seven games at the start of the season, one and half after my arm injury and less than a half after the knee. I am soon back on the bench, reeling with sheer disbelief. This is plainly ridiculous. There is no suggestion whatsoever that I have come back too quickly. If anything, I’m two weeks behind schedule. It is pure bad luck.

  So I have to start at the beginning again. Scan, six weeks out, a slow start, rehab. I find quite quickly I can get running again in straight lines, which gives me a slight lift. And the sympathy around me actually buoys me up this time. I find I can function off this how-unlucky-am-I identity.

  Then I get a call from Clive. He wants to take me to New Zealand but he won’t name me in the squad. If I can get fit, though, I’m going.

  But the person who really keeps me inspired is Blackie. With Blackie, I work from a different identity altogether, the one where I work so hard I can tell myself that I’m working harder than anyone else. That’s the identity I love.

  When we can’t work my leg, we put everything into the upper body. I shuttle from the gym at Blackie’s house to his son’s commercial gym near the coast, where they have some great machines – upper-body grinders, the Grappling Rope Machine and the fearsome Dyno, a hydraulic contraption where the harder you push, the more it resists.

  Whenever it seems I might be getting a bit lost, Blackie instinctively finds a way to re-engage me and bring the very best of me back to the fore.

  I have been injured so much that, for Newcastle, Sparks has actually started to take my place on the field. When anybody else steps in, I can’t contain that selfish nagging fear. I can’t help but wonder what does this mean for me? Will I get my place back? But I purely and genuinely want Sparks to do well. I feel this so strongly I become like a parent, and find it almost impossible to watch him. Playing on the same team as Sparks has been the best experience of my career. I find it devastating that his real breakthrough has coincided with my eternal life in rehab.

  When I’m finally fit again, I’m on the bench for a game against Northampton Saints and Sparks is playing at ten. I get on for an hour, and we are involved constantly together. We lose the match by a point but I love the game.

  We finish the season away at Gloucester, one of the most atmospheric and vibrant grounds in the country, where the fans pride themselves on the coolness of their welcome to the visiting teams. But when I go out on the field this time, I get a warm round of applause.

  Please no, please don’t applaud me. Please don’t treat me like an old friend, please don’t give me any charity. I feel intensely awkward. I’d rather be abused than cheered. All my playing life, I have wanted to win respect, but I never wanted it this way. I want to earn it.

  Fortunately, I play well. I’m right in the thick of the game throughout. We lose but I play the full 80 minutes. I have now strung together two and a half games of rugby and it might just be enough to make me a British Lion again.

  I make my first mistake as a new Lion before I have even checked in.

  Before leaving for New Zealand, the 2005 Lions meet at our team base in the Vale of Glamorgan Hotel outside Cardiff. When you arrive in a new environment, as this is, among different people, it’s important to make a good first impression, and naturally you feel a sense of trepidation. My slight problem here is that I have been away from the game for so long that I don’t know a lot of the players, and worse, I haven’t even played against them. I used to be an avid rugby watcher and do loads of video analysis. I used to know pretty much every player inside out. But in all those months out injured, I found I couldn’t bear to watch any more, so I just switched off from it all.

  I am still at the hotel check-in desk when a guy next to me says hi Jonny, how are you doing? I glance at him and say fine, thank you very much. I’m not rude or dismissive. I’m trying to be polite, the way I always am with supporters. It’s only later that I realise I have just fobbed off Eddie O’Sullivan, the Ireland coach, who is the backs coach on this Lions tour.

  My first Lions roommate is Shane Horgan and this is a particularly good start. He has an awesome sense of humour, and our connection is boosted every evening when we religiously settle down for Celebrity Love Island.

  As a squad, we are faced with a new innovation for the Lions – a Test match before we have even left home. We are, almost by definition, a bit short on preparation, having only just come together. We’re a bit like the Barbarians, but without the luxury of lack of expectation.

  The Argentina side we play may not be quite full strength but they are a good team, very good at disrupting and challenging for the ball in the tackle, especially out wide, good at turning over our ball and kicking a lot of goals. That puts pressure on a team that isn’t ready for it yet, and I end up, on the buzzer, with a 40 metre kick from the left to tie the scores.

  The ball goes over, thank goodness, but that was an unsteady start. Despite some good moments, we need to find some chemistry.

  I am not exactly sure what to make of this. Was it a good day or a bad day? The word afterwards is that this was a good way to start. We have a frame of reference, something to build on.

  We fly to Auckland, which is our base, and we haven’t been there long before Clive says to me come on, let’s go out for a drink. We go to the bar just over from our hotel for a Diet Coke and a chat.

  Clive tells me I feel you need to get the enjoyment back into your rugby.

  This is a pretty astute assessment. Maybe he can tell simply from my body language that my purpose has changed. Before 2003, and all the way to the World Cup, I was on a mission with my rugby, on a journey somewhere. I was trying to fulfil my goals and scale the mountains of the international game. The enjoyment then was
in the pursuit of that fulfilment. Now, it’s a very different game I’m playing. After all the injuries, I’m just trying to hang on, wanting to get back and keep going in my perfect-world rugby. And it’s a fight, a battle for the game and for my career, and Clive is right. There is very little enjoyment in this for me.

  I tell him yes I know, but I basically don’t feel like I’m ever going to be the sort of person who can smile while I’m playing. It’s just too serious for me. There’s too much riding on it.

  Clive says OK, but on the same note, it would be great if you could really try to enjoy this for what it is. Away from the rugby, get out of the hotel and do something different. There are a lot of activities organised for the players. Don’t be afraid to take a day off here and there to engage in some of it.

  But I can’t seem to do much of that, either. My kind of release is getting out of the hotel in the evening, walking across the port to a newsagent’s where I can browse round the shop, buy myself a couple of Diet Cokes and some snacks and then get back to my room to chill and watch a film.

  For some people, these tours have a slight holiday element. They find time for a little bit of holiday besides playing rugby. For me, even when I’m on holiday, I still train like mad. But when proper rugby and matches are involved, like now, I can’t take holiday time. I can’t justify it to myself. There’s always something I can be doing to improve, to help me make these games go right.

  Nevertheless, I know that Clive is absolutely right.

  The set-up Clive has created here is certainly impressive. We’ve got iPods with specific tour songs loaded, we’ve got a wealth of information about everyone in the squad, which I should probably have read earlier, the kit is brilliantly done, and we’ve got a code of conduct. And we haven’t got just security, we’ve got three great guys from the SBS. We cannot be accused of lacking attention to detail in our preparation.

  What I find different here from the old Clive is the extent to which we are going out to make friends with the local media. Previously, with England, we were constantly labelled as boring or overrated, we were nicknamed Dad’s Army or Orcs on Steroids and we laughed at it. We didn’t give a shit.

  Here, though, there is a change of tune. We are giving the media more time, letting them get to know the Lions and our ethos, and really trying to get them and the locals on our side. I don’t recognise that from Clive.

  My experience is that it’s a mighty tough battle to try to win over the opposition press. I think it doesn’t matter how nice you are, they’ll still write whatever they want to write. And if we manage to come over as nice blokes, is that going to make any difference to the rugby?

  There’s only one way to gain respect here and it’s not by being nice guys. It’s by playing hard and competing out on the field.

  So much for good intentions. We have been in New Zealand a month when we line up for the first Test in Christchurch. The rain is so bad it’s bordering on the conditions of Scotland 2000, and the gulf between the sides is so great that although we lose 21–3, we should go down by 35 points.

  I am selected at inside centre with Brian O’Driscoll, our captain, outside me, but he lasts barely a minute before he is off with a dislocated shoulder. Inside me is Stephen Jones, another player I have a huge amount of respect for, but we’ve only played in this combination for part of one game, against Wellington. I was excited about playing twelve. I’ve always enjoyed being a decision-maker in that position, with a little more time to organise moves. But here, that is barely a factor. Here, defence is the main aim.

  But under pressure, we don’t react as a team; we react individually. We get sucked into the ball. At times, you could throw a blanket over almost our entire team. We don’t defend with any structure, so we get pulled apart. And New Zealand play so well that, on occasions, it seems like a team run for them. We fall for everything they do. We are cannon fodder.

  I find myself trying desperately to spot where the real danger areas are for us, and a few times I end up as the last man in defence with four or five black shirts in front of me. That’s when you resort to running in and trying to pick off the pass receiver. You need to stop him, man and ball, but it’s so helpless I get frustrated and very fired up. I start looking for big hits everywhere, whether they are on or not, to try to change the game. I don’t know how else we are going to achieve anything. But that’s last resort stuff. Out on the field, I feel insignificant because there’s nothing I can do to help. And I’ve never really felt like that before.

  When you do your press interviews before a Test match, you always say how confident you are. You let the media guys know that if we play to our best, we’ve got a good chance of winning. Before the second Lions Test, in Wellington, I do say all that, but for the very first time in my career, I’m not sure if I really believe it.

  We are about to play a team who are really firing. They have just beaten us 21–3, this time it’s going to be a dry game, and the Lions have found no chemistry at all.

  Mum and Dad are in Wellington and when I hook up with them, that’s exactly what I tell them. It’s a strange situation to be in, thinking that unless something miraculous happens to a number of parts of our game, we are going to find this very difficult.

  With England, we always had confidence in our basic structure, so that even if we played absolute rubbish, we could battle to the end of the game and either hang on to a lead or fight for the winning score. We don’t seem to have that here.

  On the 2001 Lions tour, we had chemistry and just clicked. We don’t appear to have that here, either.

  We’ve had six and a half weeks to get to a level where we can beat the All Blacks on their home soil, but found no answer to the question of how to make the best use of that time. We’ve still not achieved the deep-down, real understanding of what we’re doing. No one is quite sure who is leading the charge. Between the four home nations, we’ve mixed things up and we’re not really sure what we’re supposed to end up with.

  So the second Test is even worse. We score first but then find ourselves facing a team so tight and so together that we’d need an extra two or three players on the pitch to stop them. When the All Blacks have finished with us, they are 48–18 ahead and after attempting to seek out more and more game-changing tackles, I have been taken off with concussion.

  I have also been re-acquainted with a horrible old sensation – the burning pain of a stinger that I’d hoped I’d left behind with my neck operation. This one goes down my left side, like a red-hot cord being pulled tight inside my arm; and in bed that night, when I turn over, I pinch the nerve again and wake up feeling the red-hot rawness over again. This is not good in any way.

  During the week, the slightest twitch triggers it off. And that’s me, out of the last Test, a touchline bystander, watching the tour on its last lap of pain.

  During the last week of the Lions tour, I phone Inga, who is now an Aucklander, and am invited for an evening with his family. We go out for dinner and have a lovely evening. Afterwards, Inga drives me back, and as we sit parked outside the Lions team hotel, I have the chance to ask his advice, as I’ve been wanting to do.

  I tell him I’m really struggling here. I’m not enjoying this any more. I feel like I’m just trying to survive. Rugby, for me, used to be about what you can do and what you can achieve, but now it’s about trying to come back and meet expectation, and then carry on keeping your head above water to the end of your career.

  It’s Inga I want to say this to because he’s the guy who had the smile on his face when he played. And he was different from me. He could try something on the pitch and if it didn’t go well, he could handle it. Some of what he did was jaw-droppingly good, but he didn’t feel a need to be perfect. And although he may not have had goalkicking duties, he still bore enormous pressure because Newcastle used to rely on him so much every week.

  My world is now just confusing and frustrating. I’m used to chasing goals. And I’m used to a set-up where day a
fter day, game after game, you just get in there, stick at it and things more or less turn out OK. Now I’m seeing it from a totally different point of view, and there doesn’t seem to be a moment when I sit in the changing room and smile reflectively upon my day’s work. So I’d value Inga’s opinion.

  He tells me you can’t go on like this. This is no good, this whole no enjoyment side of things. You can’t afford to play rugby like that. He says to have faith in my ability and that I’ve got to go out there and show it to people and celebrate it with the way I perform on the pitch. That is what rugby is for, a celebration of your skills and a chance to demonstrate what you are all about.

  The thing is, I’m a perfectionist with an obsessive mentality, and after feeling like I had it all with the 2003 World Cup victory, I’m left with a fear of losing everything I’ve achieved. I’m never going to change anything.

  ON holiday in Majorca, before I go to the beach each day, Chris Machin does his reconnaissance patrol. I’ve never asked him to do it, but he’s simply good at looking out for me. He walks up and down the entire beach a few times and then gives me his report. There’s a suspicious situation over that way, there’s a camera over there and there’s a guy with a long lens in the bushes next to the rocks, who has been taking photos.

  Unfortunately, people are making money from waiting for me on the beaches. This is my holiday, my annual break with Sparks and some of the boys. We’ve been coming to Majorca for years, since Sparks and I were three and four, and it now requires a Machin patrol before we can properly chill. I can measure out the changes in my life by my Majorcan holidays. Step by step, my Majorcas have changed every single year.