Free Jonny: My Autobiography by Jonny Wilkinson

guess this is a different environment from Newcastle. It’s competitive here, and we all come from different clubs, so people don’t know each otheras well. There is no welcoming moment as there was at Kingston Park, no Ingas and Pat Lams coming over to say hi.
    It’s at its worst at mealtimes. You get your food and who do you sit next to? I find myself scanning the dining room quickly and if I can’t spy a friendly face, I double back to my room. I’ll stay hungry and come back later.
    There is a form of escape in Dave Alred, who is England’s kicking coach. Training at Twickenham finishes around 5pm and then Dave and I stay and kick for hours. Kicking under floodlights at Twickenham, with the whole place to yourself, is a schoolboy’s dream. Often I don’t get back until eight, which means I’m late for dinner, which is good because there is no one in the dining room.
    I enjoy training, too, because there’s loads of contact. In particular, I enjoy a drill called murderball, which is basically fifteen on fifteen, a very small pitch, completely full-on. Physically, I act like I’m almost invincible, and I try to hit whomever I can, the biggest, smallest, just smash them. Quite what the senior guys think of an 18-year-old upstart running around trying to put them into hospital, I have no idea. But this is my release; this is my opportunity to be me.
    Kicking with Dave means I get to know Paul Grayson, who is England’s kicker and number ten, and I start to spend a lot of time with him. I feel comfortable with Grays. He is a genuinely decent bloke.
    I feel comfortable with Catty, too. I don’t know why but he is just different. Hey Wilko, he says as his greeting. He jumps on my back, puts his arm round my shoulder. Just for a brief second, I feel I’m back at Newcastle among friends.
    But when everyone is back together again, the mood changes and I revert to an awkward silence. I find the backs meetings particularly hard. Everyone gets to the meeting room early and chats while waiting for proceedings to start. I just sit there, fold my arms in my lap and find something to stare at. It’suneasy, uncomfortable, but I so desperately want to play for England, it doesn’t matter. If that’s how it has to be, so be it.
    On the Thursday of the Wales week, I am released, as expected, from the England camp so that I can play for the England Under-21s. We do well, we score some decent tries, running the ball from all over the field, and I feel the obvious contrast. I am part of this team, I feel valued and I walk around with my head held a bit higher. With England, I am, rightly, at the bottom of the chain.
    Three weeks later, I’m called back to the England senior team for the Scotland game. Clive Woodward, the head coach, wants a word. He says he is thinking of putting me on the bench.
    At least Clive is not intimidating. He seems welcoming, and he seems to have a great deal of confidence in me. I feel as though he actually believes in me, and my call-up is not some crazy one-off, but he has a genuine plan and I’m a part of it.
    I also know that he thinks I’m too quiet, not demonstrative enough, and his way of dealing with that is to ask me questions in team meetings, just to get me to say something out loud. So it’s not long before the team meetings down on the bottom floor of the Petersham Hotel are something I begin to dread. The other players seem to wander in, relaxed, yet I sit there totally paranoid, as though I’m waiting nervously for an oral exam, because I know it’s going to come, my question, my moment when I’m going to have to say something.
    There is one good team meeting, though, and that’s the one when Clive lifts the paper on the flip chart to show the team sheet, and there it is on the subs’ list: my name. My name on the England team sheet. It’s also a bit embarrassing. A lot of the players congratulate me, but I wonder oh God, do these people think I deserve it? Do they really want