But that isn’t the end of it. Not at all. It turns out that we are in trouble from the IRB because Dave Alred and Paul “Bobby” Stridgeon, our fitness coach, have attempted to switch the balls I was kicking during that first half.
I am asked for a meeting with Richard Smith QC, who is the England team lawyer. I tell him what I know. I tell him that I was desperately keen to avoid that ball number five, and that, one time, when Bobby had run on with my kicking tee, I had said to him: “Ball number five is drawing massively.” It is not exactly surprising that I wouldn’t want a ball that flies miles away from where it’s supposed to.
Unfortunately, this then ends with a sanction for Dave and Bobby who are given a touchline ban from the next game, against Scotland. That’s a really tough call, but whatever the circumstances we’ve done wrong and we’re paying the price. What seems odd, though, is that we are not allowed to talk publicly about what is happening with the balls.
Dave is therefore bitter and angry, the same as me. But I just don’t think this is that big a deal. They were all match balls. When people score and they do a celebration and punt the ball into the stand, it’s exceptionally rare that the same ball ends up being the ball you kick the conversion with. Numerous times, after a try, I’ve said to the referee, there’s no ball, and he’s turned to the sideline and a ballboy has chucked a ball on – and it’s a different one.
Though the ball-swapping issue dominates the media for much of the week, it doesn’t really affect me. What affects me far more is the Scotland-Argentina game. I watch it in Floody’s room, and we’re having a bit of a chat and a laugh about other things and taking a few notes until Argentina score at the end of the game to steal the win and suddenly everything’s changed.
We play Scotland next, and though it is still a pool match, the Argentina result means it has now become a knock-out game. If we lose by eight points, we’ll be going home. I go back to my room slightly shell-shocked; I Skype Shelley and I’m hardly able to talk. The whole week is now different.
And yes, I do feel pressure about the goalkicking, but in training I am kicking brilliantly. The sheer effort I am putting into my training now is incredible, my focus on the strike of the ball is as intense as ever, and ironically, I am probably kicking as well as I’ve ever done in my life.
However, before the game, we warm up with ball number five and Floody says to me: This is all over the place, this one. That’s all we need because the game is tough, as we knew it would be. Scotland are passionate, and the ball is wet and squirting around. They get penalties and start moving into our half; then they get kickable penalties, a drop goal and the lead.
We get down the other end; I have a couple of shots. The wind has been going left to right all day, but my first kick blows heavily left. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. The second one is from a long way and I am bang online but surprisingly short, but the third is in a similar position to the first and I’m thinking: This is going to go right but the last one went left, so just aim dead centre. But the wind pushes it right. Here we go again.
I get the fourth and we go into half-time 9-3 down. This is tough. Yet I still have no kind of nervous hesitation in taking these kicks. I can’t afford to have any. I’m just kicking too well in training, I’m still 100% confident that I’m doing the right thing.
If I was taking on these kicks just thinking, what the hell, I’ve got to have a go because everyone expects me to – that would be irresponsible. But every kick I take on, I still believe that this one’s going to make the difference, my preparation has been so good I still believe I’m going to smash it over.
In the second half, I have two penalty attempts, both tough shots. I make one from the corner; the other is short and I should probably have kicked it into touch. We do not play particularly well, but we find a way to win and get ourselves through to the quarter-finals. But for me, as a perfectionist, there are big issues here to attend to. As a team, we went very quiet, we gave up all the initiative and let Scotland dictate. I don’t know if it’s the threat of an early exit, but I feel inside and outside me some teammates are looking at me for the solutions to a complex situation which I actually really need their help to find.
What doesn’t help is that, for the second time, I have come away with a less than 50 per cent kicking success rate. I don’t do less than 50 per cent. In big games where I have taken a reasonable number of kicks, I think the last time I did less than 50 per cent was four from eight against New Zealand in my first World Cup 12 years ago.
My feeling is that it’s just horribly unprofessional and an extremely bitter pill to swallow that, at the biggest tournament in the sport, we’re having to deal with this. Being unable to rely on my goalkicking makes performing physically and mentally draining. I’m getting hammered by the media again; nobody seems interested in the rest of my game. The rewards for my efforts are hard to find. The organisers can claim that all the balls are the same, but they’re not. If they were, they wouldn’t be doing this.
I’m sick to my stomach thinking about how hard I’ve practised my kicking over all those years and what little good it has done me at such an important time. It angers me. Deep down I know that I have never stood for poor results. I have never been able to accept average and yet this is what I’m staring at now. The worst thing is I don’t know what I can do to make it better.
Against Scotland, it seemed as though there were a hell of a lot of Scots in that stadium. Or a lot of people wearing blue. I thought the same against Romania: there’s suddenly a lot of Romanian fans around. And while the crowd is sometimes incredibly loud, it’s been a long time since I’ve experienced that kind of noise whilst I’m kicking.
It’s quite easy to go to every World Cup game we are in feeling like we’re the villains, that we’re not particularly well liked. The booing has been pretty full on, though I am told it is worse here for the Aussies. In a rugby sense, it doesn’t affect me in any way, yet it’s interesting and difficult to understand. I don’t know how much of it is due to the bad publicity that has come from the Queenstown episode, but it’s there nonetheless.
I don’t know if we’re not to blame as well, though. I don’t believe that we are giving off the right impression here.
What I do know is that Johnno, Brian Smith, Mike Ford and the other coaches have been great to me out here. And as a playing squad, we’re just not doing them justice.
We are to play France in the quarter-final and it is now not a case of Floody or me in the side, it is both of us. Me at 10 and Floody at 12.
Unlike most of the media, never at any point did I see the number ten issue as a case of me versus Toby. Yet I cannot deny the little part of me that is pleased to be able to have come back from some very hard times and reclaimed my place in the team.
Picking both of us is ideal as far as I’m concerned and I tell Floody that straight away: You’re playing great, it’s going to be awesome to have you on the same pitch, your positivity, your talking, your communication, every part of it is extremely important to me. And I mean it. It is great for me having another decision-maker out there to take the responsibility and the heat off, improve communication and move in and out of first and second receiver. It’s like having Mike Catt out there again.
That is the good bit. On the pitch, the game itself spins quickly away from us. We lose a few set pieces, we give away a few penalties, we drop a few balls and we can’t quite finish things off when it matters. Suddenly it is half-time and we are 16-0 down.
In the 65th minute, Matt Banahan arrives on the pitch next to me and I see that I am being substituted. I’ve picked up dead leg and have knackered myself out running on it. It’s not a bad call. But the score is 16-7, still a long way back for us and my thoughts are simple: I hope to God we win. My individual feelings don’t yet register.
We do continue the comeback, but not far enough. We finish 19-12 down and, just like that, our World Cup dream is snuffed out.
Afterwards
, I take a look around the ground, I stand there absorbing it all, the stadium emptying and the French celebrating. This is Eden Park, New Zealand, the end of the World Cup, the last thing I see of a World Cup from on the field. I try to take it in. This trip has been at times terrible and definitely bizarre. And now, all too soon, it’s over.
That’s my last World Cup chapter, finished.
When I think back to that young lad playing mini rugby at Farnham, vomiting in the hedge through nerves, crying before games because he couldn’t bear the thought of not getting it right, I wonder seriously how much has changed. I also truly wonder how the hell I ended up where I am now. Right through to the end of that last World Cup game, I still couldn’t bear the thought of not being perfect. What if I didn’t get it right? I still couldn’t bear the thought of letting people down. The difference is that I finished off doing all this in front of thousands of people, millions of people.
On the eve of our France quarter-final, I received another fax from Blackie. This is what he wrote: ‘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.’
No surprises – but once again he found something that made perfect sense to me.
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 you’re the villain, while I have been the same guy all along.
And all along, I feel as though my story has been carved from contradictions. I learned at mini rugby I wanted to be perfect, yet I have lived since then with both a desire for perfection and the knowledge that it’s unattainable. When you’re obsessive, like me, searching for something unattainable can become unhealthy.
Controlling my reputation and basing my fulfilment upon perfect outcomes – it’s like falling through the air and grabbing at the clouds. What Blackie’s fax says to me is that it’s not the facts, figures and results that matter, it’s how you make people feel.
Yet I know that I have spent many years trying to clutch onto things. Until 2003, I followed a path; it felt right, it was right, it always felt as if I was moving forwards. I sometimes think that ever since then, I’ve been trying to find my way back onto that path, trying to uncover my own quick-fix solution to get back to where I was back then.
Too often, England wanted the quick fix from me too. I was put back in to sort things out and it’s probably my fault I let that happen. All those hours and hours of training, working on small skills, evasive ability, footwork, speed, handling skills, trying to develop as a player – what’s really disappointed me is that so very rarely have I been able to use that. When things aren’t right, it always has to come back to getting into the opposition half and keeping the scoreboard moving. I became more of a stereotype than I ever intended or wanted to be.
My fault again. I had a reputation and I wanted to be the person who lived up to it, who always came through when the pressure was on and the team needed it. After the World Cup win in 2003, I spent the next three years pretty much completely out of the game and so when I came back, I was desperate to be that person again. I never had nor gave myself the time to build again.
Ultimately I suppose I’ve been fighting a mental disposition, fighting who I am. Yet I know that my obsessiveness is what made me, what helped me towards whatever I have achieved.
I think of the two times I went out with Inga in Auckland – during the Lions tour in 2005 when I was mentally at a real low, and during the last World Cup when I was more mature and happier. Things have changed in between, yet it’s almost the same battle taking place inside me. Many of the issues from 2005 are still there in 2011. It’s just that I’ve become more mature, more grounded and adept at dealing with them. I can’t change it, maybe I realise now that I can’t afford to. I still strive to be perfect because it’s what gives me my edge over others on the field. I just understand better that I’m not perfect and I know that’s OK.
But if, as Blackie says, this is all about how I have made people feel, then I hope that I have made them feel good about rugby whilst I’ve been playing. The rugby supporters I have encountered around the world have been incredibly generous to me. I just hope that I have made them feel that there is an integrity in how I have behaved and what I have given to the sport, in the respect I have always had for my teammates and the honour I have felt in representing my country.
For me, this is massively important too: now my World Cups are done, I know I have given everything to this sport. Not just every match or even every training session, but every second, every moment, every opportunity. I could not have given more. I can’t live with regrets and thank God that in this respect, I have none.
If I could review the footage of that 24-hour camera, then I could sign it off happily.
And of course, the camera doesn’t stop after the World Cup. The day after France beat us, Harley Crane picked me up and we drove a couple of hours way out west, climbed up a huge sand dune and down the other side to get to a beautiful beach. And we played hacky sack together, just him and me for a long time before going for a swim in the sea. It was a trip back to the old times; so much fun.
But two days later, on the Tuesday, I arrived back in England. I was back in Toulon on the Wednesday and back on the field on the Saturday for the last half hour in a big win over Perpignan.
Being back just reinforced what is important. There have been times in my career when my team has won everything and there have been others when we’ve come up short. However, the results, the scoreboard, the outcomes are totally superseded by the journeys that took me to them. Winning and losing don’t last. What do are friendships, the team, giving all you’ve got, memories, embracing the moment.
This is what’s bigger: it’s being in that changing-room after the 2007 World Cup quarter-final with Mike Catt and Martin Corry and sharing those special few minutes; it’s the wow moments alone with Dave Alred, kicking balls with some of the best stadia in the world all to ourselves; it’s hearing Inga fail to choke back the tears as he said goodbye to our Newcastle team, in a dressing-room awash with mutual respect; it’s being with the Toulon boys listening to the Black Eyed Peas, being able to look them in the eye and knowing what we’ve been through together; it’s sharing the daily path towards getting better with Blackie and Sparks and Mum and Dad too, living it, fighting for everything that mattered to us; it’s sharing the battle with inspirational people like Jamie Noon, Sonny Bill, Hilly, Pat Lam, Felipe Contepomi, and the knowledge that whether or not you see these guys ever again, it lasts forever. It’s even the defeats, the 76-0 in Australia, the third Lions Test in Sydney three years later; whether it’s the worst time in the world or the best, it’s still about banking on each other, standing tall and helping each other to get through it. Emotionally, that’s a special place to be.
I feel I made the most of being in those privileged places and that is why I’m proud of what I have done. 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. That doesn’t come into it. What I am proud of is I have searched for the best of me and I have been a team man without fail. I made it all matter to me and I gave it my very best shot. Who in this world ever regretted doing that?
MATT BURKE
When we arrived in Newcastle, initially we only had the one car, so my first day, my wife Kate drove me to training. Eight in the morning and there he was, taking a shot at goal. We did training and he kicked some more. Everyone went for lunch, apart from Jonny, who maybe had a quick bite to eat but basically kicked all through lunch, too. We trained a bit more in the afternoon, and when I’d showered and Kate had come to pick me up in the afternoon, he was still in the same spot, kicking the goals. Kate said to me how come you can’t be that dedicated?
> I only worked it out when I was over in the UK, why he kept so much to himself in public. After one of the autumn internationals, we were in the BA lounge in Heathrow and he was tucked right out the back, and even there he was hassled by people. Everyone wanted a piece of him; it was like he was public property.
But one thing I felt was so hard for him was the media. No one gave him that freedom to be able to get over the injuries and get himself right. He was always judged on his performances in the past, and obviously in the 2003 World Cup. And when he wasn’t playing for England, he was being judged against the incumbent ten. That was real tough.
MIKE CATT
I remember the slight young man Jonny was when he came into the England set-up, and I could really relate to it. In 1994, when I got my first international cap, nobody really knew me. Will Carling took me under his wing, and gave me that sense that I did fit in and could feel part of the team.
Back then, you had to win respect from some players. Until you’d got their respect on the rugby pitch, they wouldn’t talk to you. When I turned up at my first club, Bath, I remember I threw a pass out to Jerry Guscott and he literally stopped in the middle of the training session and just threw the ball back at me. That’s the way it worked back then.
So I knew how tough it was for Jonny, coming into an environment like that, especially at number ten. When you have to be the boss, it’s so, so hard as a youngster or, as in my case, a foreigner, coming in and shouting the odds. You need people around you who can push you through – as Will Carling did with me.
Jonny: My Autobiography Page 34