Jonny Wilkinson has admitted he has struggled to cope with a series of injuries since kicking England to World Cup glory, saying his spells on the sidelines have had ”a massively detrimental effect on my life”.
The 27-year-old made his sixth comeback from injury since landing the drop-goal that won England the Webb Ellis trophy in Sydney in November 2003, coming on as a second-half replacement in Newcastle’s 32-21 Premiership win over Sale at Kingston Park.
Wilkinson, renowned for his thorough training regime and attention to detail, said his fitnes setbacks had forced him to tone down his attitude towards practice.
”I’ve been desperate to come back but I’ve actually torn the groin two or three times since November so my comeback is a little bit later, maybe a month or so, than had been planned,” the flyhalf said.
”I have to reduce some of the training I’ve done in the past because I just can’t do it any more. Some people may call it age but for me it’s down to the injuries,” he explained after Sunday’s match.
”Sometimes I need to realise that I will wake up in the morning and just won’t have it in me to go out and smash balls on the training field all day and risk not playing at the weekend.”
But Wilkinson revealed: ”Not playing has had a massively detrimental effect on my life.”
Newcastle fans saw their hero turn in a solid display as Newcastle ran in three second-half tries for a win which assured bottom-of-the-table Leeds of the Premiership’s lone relegation spot.
Wilkinson, well-known for his fearless approach to tackling, explained that he’d had to keep contact to a minimum in training this week after aggravating the latest abductor injury.
”Waking up I had to accept I wasn’t going to feel as prepared as I normally am,” he said.
”I wasn’t able to kick yesterday [Saturday, because of the injury] and one lesson from all this is that life has to change for me a little bit.
”This time I’m just going to take it one game at a time and use the end of this season as a bit of a springboard.”
Despite his concerns, Wilkinson said he was happy with both his and Newcastle’s peformance against league leaders Sale.
”It was a lovely day to be playing rugby against an ambitious team like Sale that enables both sides to play the sort of rugby they want to play.
”I’m a bit sore because I was thrown in at the deep end having not had much contact in training. I’m taking it one day at a time but I was desperately keen to get back. It felt good.” – Sapa-AFP