Rugby Betting: No holiday for Wilkinson

International / Ralph Ellis / 18 September 2009 / Leave a Comment

“I’m a sportsman trying to get the best from myself and that means it can never be a holiday. You see the England guys playing on TV and you start to burn inside. I will always want to play for my country.”

Jonny Wilkinson has made a superb start to the season for Toulon and fly-half is desperate to play his way into Martin Johnson's thoughts, says Ralph Ellis.

It's very easy to think that Jonny Wilkinson's career never lived up to its promise. From the moment he sent that drop goal sailing over the posts in Sydney, he was cast as the golden boy who would make rugby the new football. Instead he's been the man who has seemed to be always on the treatment table.

In fact there's a lot of comparisons to be made with Michael Owen, another who hit such heights early in his career he would always be judged by impossible standards. I read recently that Owen had "never matched the promise of his amazing goal against Argentina in 1998". Quite where that leaves a record of 40 goals in 89 caps I'm not sure.

Anyway, Wilkinson's career might have been blighted by injuries since that sensational World Cup winning performance, but somehow he's still managed to play enough games to be the game's all-time leading international points scorer with more than 1,000 in 70 England matches. So he must have been fit sometime.

And he's certainly fit now. Since moving to France to start playing for Toulon he's enjoyed a superb start to the season and is already the leading points scorer in the French Top 14. England manager Martin Johnson might have issued dark warnings that those who moved away from the Guinness Premiership could be ignored when it came to international selection, but surely that was bluster. If Wilkinson keeps playing well he has to return - just as if Owen were to hit a rich vein of goal getting in the second half of the season you'd want him in Fabio Capello's World Cup squad.

Wilko's given a great interview today to the Daily Mirror's rugby writer Alex Spink, who's been to the Cote d'Azur to see his progress. And he's found that all the old obsession for endless practice sessions and perfection seeking is still there.

"I am who I am," he says. "I'm a sportsman trying to get the best from myself and that means it can never be a holiday. You see the England guys playing on TV and you start to burn inside. I will always want to play for my country."

He gets another chance to show how he's rediscovering his best form on Sunday when Toulon play Toulouse in front of a sell-out 60,000 crowd in Marseille. His new team, including another English recruit Tom May, are already sat fourth in the French Top 14 table and look fantastic value to back at [19] to end up as French Grand Final winners.

His return would also be the boost that his 2003 World Cup winning captain Johnson wants as he moves into the second season of his time in charge. England are marginal favourites at between [3.35] and [4.3] in a newly formed market for this season's Six Nations, but if by then they've got Wilko's deadly boot back in action they would be worth backing at a tighter price. Could he still be a force for one more World Cup in 2011? He clearly thinks so. It would be a superb way to sign off his career.

Five things you might not know about Jonny Wilkinson

1. He was an outstanding cricketer at school, captain of the Lord Wandsworth College first XI and opening both the batting and bowling

2. He has only played 58 minutes of senior club rugby when he was first called up for an England squad

3. While he was playing for Newcastle he lived with his elder brother Mark

4. His school successes included passing French 'A' level with an A grade - which is coming in handy now. He does all his interviews with the local Toulon media in their native language. He also got 'A' levels in Biology and Chemistry

5. He's a big basketball fan and got Michael Jordan's autograph. Trouble was it was signed "to Johnny" with an H!