Jonny: My Autobiography

by Wilkinson, Jonny

  Not long afterwards, I am at a dinner in London. I don’t normally do dinners, especially not the way I’m feeling right now, but I have been asked to attend almost as a secret, to present a surprise award to Richard Hill. I love doing that, and Hilly is special to me. I want to be at this dinner.

  In the midst of the evening, I find myself deep in conversation with another player, whom I have known for a long time, and because I am acutely aware of what is happening to me, I am on the brink of sharing my story with people, putting little feelers out in conversation. When I mention that I’m struggling a bit, a door swings open. This player opens up and tells me he had massive problems, too. Here is the proof that, thank God, I am not completely alone.

  He tells me his story and I latch on to every detail. I feel great respect for him, to know that he has dealt with this for so much longer than I have. So I tell him my story, and he gives me the London telephone number of an American therapist, David Carter.* He tells me that David is the guy he spoke to, a great guy, funny but engaging. For me, he says, it really worked, so just try it. And that’s how I start.

  Back home in Slaley, I ring David, although I feel hesitant. One of the first things he says to me is you just need to realise you’ve got an illness. He informs me that this illness is the cause of the depression and the panic attacks, and it has a cure. You’re not doomed, he says.

  I enjoy hearing him say that. I need to know I’m going to stop feeling like this, I say to him. I need to know that I’ll get back to being my normal self again.

  After that, I speak with David regularly, once a week for about an hour, always on the phone, David in his London office and me from the home phone in Slaley. I often ask for a second weekly appointment, and I take notes, furiously. The irony is not lost on me. It may have been my obsessive nature that drove me to my low point, but I intend to be extremely obsessive about finding my way out.

  For instance, one time David gives me an exercise – write down every new thought topic that I’m obsessing about, how it’s affecting me and how I could look at it differently. So I do, spending a day and a half on it, and when we are next on the phone, I tell him I’ve done a hell of a lot. So we spend the entire hour going through it, and as the session comes to an end, we’ve covered two pages. What, I ask him, am I supposed to do with the other six?

  After just a few sessions, it’s clear to me that this is big, way bigger than winning the World Cup or trying to be the best player in the world. But this is what I’m made for, isn’t it? Back against the wall, facing a huge challenge that look insurmountable. That’s how I see it. I’ll just have to give it everything, the way I used to love to do.

  At the end of the season, my groin allows me back. I play three games, two halves as a substitute followed by 70 minutes in a good final-match victory over Leeds at Kingston Park.

  Out there on the field is the only time I seem able to live in the moment. It allows me to escape from everything and I grab these playing experiences keenly. They are so important to me that I don’t want to let them go, and I try to hang on to them for as long as I can. So after the games, in the changing rooms, I sit there, still in my rugby boots, while everyone else changes.

  Playing rugby makes me feel a bit better about myself; it gives me back a bit of self-worth. And sitting there in my kit extends the feeling. I know that changing means having to face up to what I know is waiting for me. It’s like taking off the cloak of invincibility and going back to reality.

  It’s probably not hugely healthy to do this. I know that. I know it’s going back to my old values, my old self. But until I have found the new identity, I can still derive great comfort from the old one.

  When I talk to David, he often says oh yeah, I know what that feels like, I used to do that, too. Often, when someone tells me their story, I feel like it could never be as bad as what I’m going through. But some of David’s stories make mine pale into insignificance. I really try to listen to him and learn. I have to retrain my brain to see things in a more helpful way.

  For many years, life has been relatively simple, one season blending into another, an upward curve of playing rugby and gradually accruing more success. My identity was written in facts – this many wins, this many caps, this many points, these awards, this World Cup, these Lions tours – and these facts produced evidence to show that my values were right and were never to be messed with.

  And my values were so dogmatic, so set in black and white. I decided what was right and what was wrong, what was professional behaviour and what was not, who deserved to win and who didn’t. I could go out on the field and say I’m better than these other guys because I’ve worked harder, given more, care about it more.

  But in this state I can’t work harder and I can’t be the best, and two years of that pushed me to breaking point. Under the scrutiny of my own values system, I was faring terribly.

  I explain to David my anxieties about losing everything I had worked so hard to achieve. I tell him my fear of not playing any more, and he mentions a great quote, from the founder of Buddhism. ‘The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.’

  This shocks me. What an incredible thought. And it makes so much sense to me, especially when I think about playing rugby. Before games, I am dying from thoughts of what might happen and what might go wrong and my need for it to go perfectly. Afterwards, I’m no better. I can destroy myself with ceaseless reflections on what I could have done better and how that might have changed the course of the game.

  I tell David I want to know more about this and he gives me some reading. I speak to Blackie and find, not surprisingly, that he knows all about it.

  David starts throwing in other references. He talks about Gandhi, Jesus and other iconic figures – not preaching, just telling me about their philosophies and how these incredible people, these powerful leaders, have been dealing with the same stuff as I’m now facing for thousands of years.

  And I consume it all hungrily. It’s clear to me that I have to be honest with myself, and acknowledge that I have to look beyond rugby and achievements and facts that you can find in a stats book. I am being forced to find something deeper. This is a massive turning point for my life, the start of my spiritual journey.

  Increasingly, I am inspired by Buddhist philosophy. I want to understand more about who I am and why I seem to be fighting against the world I live in instead of working with it. In order to do that, I realise I need to learn more empathy, and be more flexible with my views and my values. My whole life has revolved around piling on layers of achievements, trying to be the best, wanting people to respect me the most and seeking perfection. I figured all these things would protect me and make me strong, but ultimately they have made me so much weaker. I find a connection with Buddhist philosophy. Just shed the layers, go back to the beginning, stop viewing everything I do in comparison to others.

  I won’t kid myself. I know that I will always be as nervous as hell before a game and as frustrated as hell after it. But at least I can see a way to a healthy perception of the world and my place within it. I can now see that there is something far deeper, more important and more lasting than the game or myself.

  I am now treating two injuries simultaneously. My head and my groin. I might have been able to make contributions to three end-of-season games, but the groin is a managed injury rather than a mended one.

  We arrange for me to go to see a specialist in Bergen in Norway called Peter Sorensen, but first we have to do some filming for him. He wants to analyse my movement, to see me running up and down in straight lines. That is fair enough, except what he wants is to see me running almost entirely naked, wearing nothing but a pair of pants and some trainers. I travel out to Bergen and show the video to Sorensen and, within seconds, he knows more or less what the problem is.

  He asks me some questions about key repetitive
movements. He asks me to go through the goalkicking movement again and identifies the problem. As he sees it, to ensure that my follow-through and my body weight shift is in a straight line, I am deliberately preventing my body from rotating. By doing that, I am keeping my right adductor really tight, to fight against the body’s natural urge to rotate.

  The problem is that my glute muscle which works antagonistically to the adductor has now been rendered useless and has switched off. It should be working with the adductor, as a pair, but the adductor muscle is taking all the workload and getting hugely tired, and that is why it keeps giving out.

  Sorensen is a genius. He explains: The solution is to get your glute muscle working again properly. This is key to my recovery.

  My conversations with David guide me in the right direction, but there is no overnight quick-fix solution to depression. There is no eureka moment when I think I’ve cracked it.

  I experience some big highs, but there are some heavy losses on the journey, too, when I feel I’m sinking even lower. In Majorca, on what should be a holiday, I struggle badly. I go for hour-long walks round the streets with my mobile phone clamped to my ear and David on the other end.

  But I also know that I am achieving something. I’m finding a deeper understanding that I consider to be my spirituality, and that is more important than my achievements on a rugby pitch. And I do just start to feel a real strength for once, as though I’m finding a little bit more of myself again.

  As the new season approaches, I have a better idea of how to manage myself, how to control my obsessive switch. I know that as soon as the game approaches, or when I hit the field, I can flick the switch on and be my old self, the person who can’t stand losing and will go to every extreme to help his team win. But I have to learn to switch it off when I leave the field. I have to be able to say to myself you know what, there’s something deeper than the game. Leave the regrets behind.

  The World Cup in 2003 was my moment of perfection, the realisation of all my goals. Since then, I’ve been trying to cling on to who I was and what I had. Now I have a different view of perfection, one that lies within intentions, not outcomes. I cannot let outcomes define me, for good or for bad.

  Of course, all that is easier said than done, but at least I know what I want to do.

  * This is not his real name, which has been changed for reasons of privacy.

  THE start of the 2006–07 season is another fresh start. What is this, the sixth?

  I go into it with so many new and important messages of my own, but a familiar one from the outside is take it easy. The Newcastle coaches and physios have been telling me that almost ever since I arrived here. Try not to over-stretch my body. Don’t overtrain. This time I have to listen and be more responsible.

  Easier said than done. That is one hell of a challenge. I derive strength from pushing the boundaries. I’m the guy who believes that if I train harder, I’ll be better. Generally, my rule of thumb is if they give you a training session, do it and then do some more, stretch it further. And here I am, having to take it easy.

  It plays with my peace of mind. For every game I ever play, my intention is to prepare exhaustively. I want to know that I have every single base covered, every box ticked. Only when I have ticked them all do I have the mental equilibrium to go into a game. Now I have to change my entire game plan.

  OK, I say, I’ll try it. But it feels so uncomfortable.

  Pre-season goes well. Then in our first Guinness Premiership game of the season we play Northampton Saints away and lose by two points. I hate that. But I am playing again. This is what I’m supposed to be doing, right?

  Next up it’s Worcester at home and it happens again. Which part of the body? A knee. Left knee. Even as it happens, I am making my own diagnosis because I have done this before now with the right knee. Twice.

  It’s all so mundane. We knock on and I dive on the ball. I don’t even need to do this because the referee is in the process of blowing his whistle anyway. Meanwhile, Andy Buist is tackled off the ball, and he lands on me. Andy is a big second row (ironically enough he is the guy I chucked off the physio bed a while back), and that’s when I hear the pop. It’s exactly the same pop I have heard before, and I lie there with this harsh ache, this deep throbbing pain, thinking I know where we are. This is my left medial. What grade is the tear? Probably two or three, which means no surgery and eight to twelve weeks out.

  In the medical room under the stadium, lying on the physio bed, I can hear the oohs and aahs of the crowd as the game carries on without me. There’s nothing much anyone can say or do. Sparks and Shelley come in to see me. How does it feel? Is there anything you need? Anything we can do? But they pretty much know the answers. Everyone does. They can tell by my face.

  It’s not as though I’m a boxer who’s been knocked out for the first time. I’m used to picking myself up off the canvas. Yes, I’m pissed off, hugely. But after so many injuries, I’m just a bit exhausted by it all. I’m not asking ‘why me?’ any more. I’m asking what am I going to do about it? How am I going to respond and get fit again?

  It’s not the pain that’s hurting; it’s knowing what lies ahead. Two or three days later, back home, the weird, depressing, fleeting excitement of the injury is gone and I have a ten-week recovery plan staring me in the face. And again, I can contribute nothing to my rugby club. After a week or so, I will start to filter back in to the club, where I will be forced to watch other people doing what I want to do and what I need to be doing – playing rugby, moving forward and improving. I’ll watch them training, being part of the team. This is the worst part. It is so tough to deal with.

  And yes, I was right. A medial tear, grade two. My way out, as ever, is to draw up a programme. My salvation is my training schedule with Blackie, his son’s gym in Tynemouth, his own gym, the upper-body grinders, the grappler and the Dyno, and the thought that if I can build my upper-body strength, when I come back, I’m going to be stronger and my tackling is going to be better. This is the positivity that keeps me functioning. The alternative is to sit around, waiting for the knee to heal, which is apparently what I’m supposed to do now. Don’t overtrain, don’t overdo it. But I just can’t do that. I have to keep moving, or I’m afraid I’ll fall apart.

  When Matt Burke first arrived at Newcastle a year ago, I was surprised by him and by his training habits.

  Back then, I was hugely judgemental. I had views on what was and wasn’t good enough, professional enough, what was right and what was wrong. I could not deal with the idea that other players might come to games with what I saw as a lack of commitment or preparation.

  When Matt arrived from Australia, outstanding full-back, 81 caps, a guy I had heard so much about, I was really excited. But I noticed that he wasn’t doing that much kicking, or all the training, and I concluded that he was obviously not the guy I thought he was.

  But my new spiritual pathway has opened my eyes and helped me to take a different viewpoint. I have tried to be more empathetic towards other people, less judgemental, more understanding, and now I start to see the situation for what it really is. Matt has had goodness knows how many operations and problems with his body, and what he has been doing is learning from these issues. He has been carefully managing himself, and his abilities, working in a hugely professional way. Everything is directed towards getting on to the pitch at the weekend, with confidence, and playing like a god out there.

  He is an example to me, much more professional than I am. He provides another great lesson about my old dogmatic take on life and how flawed it is.

  Every game I play now is viewed as a ‘comeback’. That’s what the media, the club programme, the people who ask if I’m playing again call it.

  What I’d like would be to play a game without that attention or those expectations. I do all that training and preparation, but a part of me still doesn’t quite know what it’s going to be like. I don’t have the reassurance of repetition, playing week in week out, and
so knowing that I can do this. It’s eight weeks since the Worcester game and we’re playing Bristol. I’m feeling nervous about it and everyone is watching me, watching another comeback. I’d like to play this game without anyone in the stands or the pressbox, but that’s not the way it works. I’m the guy who kicked the drop goal that won the World Cup, and now I’m the guy who can’t play without getting injured, so people come to watch. They want to see if I can still do those drop goals and whether I’m going to get injured again. That’s two reasons to see me now.

  A feeling comes from within the club – Jonny’s back, throw Jonny in and we should be all right. That’s a further weight of expectation.

  For me, the picture has changed significantly. I no longer have a list of life goals, and I no longer have that ambition to be the best player in the world. ‘Best in the world’ is subjective. It’s just an opinion and everyone is entitled to their own. But I’m not interested in dealing with opinions. Rather than being the best in other people’s minds, I now want to be the best I can be in my own. That doesn’t mean I expect anything less from myself, quite the opposite. There might be expectation from outside with every comeback, but it will never match the almighty pressure from within.

  The game actually goes really well, and my enjoyment of it is helped massively by the Bristol full-back. At least, I think it’s the full-back, because he hits me so fast and hard I haven’t exactly got time to check. Midway through the game, I take a high ball. I don’t think anyone’s chasing, so I take it standing still. The guy I haven’t seen absolutely smashes me. It’s a good hit, really good, and I’m winded, so I wander over to the wing, trying to look nonchalant, just for a brief recovery. Now the adrenalin is really pumping.

  It’s funny that, in rugby, people try to target players in the opposition without knowing what reaction that’s going to provoke. You hope that if you smash someone, he’ll take the hit, feel the pain, decide he doesn’t like it and withdraw into his shell. With me, an attempted hit has always been like stoking the fire, and if you actually get me, well, that means trouble. I enjoy feeling that there’s no other option but to fire back. So I take a hit like this one and think right, now I’m ready. I don’t mind it at all.