Revealed: Jonny Wilkinson is the secret weapon in England’s Six Nations camp – as he lifts the lid on the tricks he’s using to unlock Marcus Smith’s ‘genius’

Jonny Wilkinson is feeling uneasy. Talking about this has been a ‘red flag’ for him until now. The iconic No 10 has been quietly helping England’s playmakers, but the last thing he wants is attention or recognition.

Having agreed to an exclusive interview with Mail Sport, the darling of the 2003 World Cup triumph is understated about his involvement with the national team. He is valued as a mentor, guru and inspirational figure, not least by his modern-day successors, the Smiths; Fin and Marcus. 

They have heralded his impact as they grow accustomed to the demands of running the show for England, as Jonny did with such distinction and success for so many years.

But the legendary fly-half is reluctant to ‘step in front’ of the men now carrying the flag. He does not seek credit. ‘It’s about other people and their talent,’ says Wilkinson. ‘My role is as a facilitator, a support system and partner.’

However, with due apologies to the great man for the big headline and the fleeting fanfare, this is a subject of national interest and importance. 22 years after kicking England to global glory, he is still having a positive effect on the country’s rugby fortunes, with all his accumulated wisdom. His pupils – or ‘partners’ – are in awe of his impact and it is absolutely tangible.

The message Wilkinson is keen to deliver publicly, as well as in his sessions with the Smiths, is that mental liberation is the key to fulfilment. 

As a player, he learned the hard way about the struggle to stave off the spectre of anxiety, induced by high-profile sporting responsibility. He knows only too well how natural ability and freedom of expression can be stifled and he wants to help the Smiths try to avoid this debilitating process. 

As they prepare for Saturday’s Six Nations encounter with Scotland, Wilkinson says: ‘It’s about losing that connection with your inner gift and confidence. That is perhaps the role that I play; to try to bring about clarity, confidence and calm.

‘You get this narrative that ‘Now I’ve had a degree of success, I feel everyone is counting on me’. The language turns to being worried about letting people down, pressure, expectation and fear of failure. 

‘Those are the thoughts which keep pounding out, whereas when players are younger, all they see are opportunities and excitement.

‘I feel that might be my role; opening back up that sense of sheer possibility about what they are doing. It can be summed up – those two states of energy – by saying, ‘Anything is possible’ or ‘everything is a problem’.

‘When you go out there with ‘everything is a problem’ in your head, all you are trying to do is survive. When you think ‘anything is possible’, all you are doing is creating. When we find a creative player, we call them a genius. When you find someone who is surviving, you call them a warrior.’

Marcus Smith is in the genius category. He has instinctive brilliance in his DNA. Wilkinson’s task is to be the calming influence behind the scenes, who encourages him to keep trusting those instincts, even in adversity. 

On Saturday, he will continue at full-back and will continue taking risks. In the last match against France, magic Marcus kept threatening the visitors with his natural attacking exuberance, despite a few errors which could have forced him back into his shell.

That is the absolute embodiment of Wilkinson’s message. ‘Marcus is a glowing representation, to a tee, of ‘anything is possible’,’ he says. ‘Hence why, when he is on the pitch, there is a sense of (gasp) about your team. The job is to channel that and we call it an aura. It is powerful.

‘People have an aura which means their strengths are evident and anything is possible. But over time, you can see that light dim, as it did in me, when that ‘anything is possible’ turns to ‘everything is a problem’.’

Wilkinson’s work with the Smiths is constant and fluid. There is no limit and no specific remit. It can be technical, it can be advisory – at times it can be almost spiritual. But he rejects any notion of a master-and-apprentice dynamic; insisting that he benefits from the arrangement as much as they do.

‘I just have an ongoing relationship with those guys,’ says the 45-year-old, who is not officially part of England’s management team, but more of an ad hoc consultant. ‘If Steve (Borthwick) wants me to work with a player or I cross paths with a player, as I have done with many players, then we are on, from that moment. The door is never shut.

‘I was still working with Danny Cipriani about three years after he finished! We were still going out kicking. It doesn’t matter if it’s with rugby or without rugby, it’s still about uncovering more of you. This gift doesn’t stop just because you take that [England] shirt off.

‘I have a relationship with the guys (the Smiths) and we keep in contact throughout the year, working together all the time. Then in camp we work together as a group but also individually. In camp it is more structured, in terms of certain training days when they can fit me in.’

So, what’s the format when he goes into camp? ‘Most of it is just spontaneous,’ he adds. ‘We let conversations just go where they go. We work with drills and see where they go. 

‘Sometimes it is about, ‘Right, let’s knuckle down, let’s get things done’. Other times, it can be about exploration and just saying, ‘Okay, let’s play with this and see where it goes’. There is no textbook with it. It’s just a beautiful unfolding journey.

‘That’s why I don’t get involved in the team coaching because those guys have got it real tough. They have 30-odd guys to deal with, organisational challenges and structured time. That is challenging – whereas I get this beautiful role of just going in there and saying, ‘Right, let’s light each other up a bit and be honest and open’. It is really powerful.

‘Sometimes, it involves a two-hour session of pounding the same damn kick. Sometimes it involves 10-minute sessions then just walking around the field and having a heartfelt chat. And sometimes it involves sitting at home and not actually doing anything. But all of that is dedication – none of it is switch-off time.

‘My job is to turn up and be incredibly responsive, receptive and sensitive to what is going on. If I don’t bring that then I don’t know what I’m bringing.’

What Wilkinson is bringing, even now, is an eternal quest for improvement which is infectious to just talk about, let alone to witness first-hand. These days, he acts as a TV pundit and podcast host, as well as a mentor. He retired as a player more than 10 years ago, but the urge within to explore his potential has not been extinguished.

‘It comes back to the fact that I still love kicking a ball,’ he says. ‘I still want to find out what the hell I’m capable of. I still find myself drawn towards seeing how many (shots) I can get in a row and that kind of stuff.’

Hearing him talk about his own enduring dedication to his craft, in retirement, leads to an obvious curiosity about whether Wilkinson measures himself against the current players he is trying to support. It is not a mental leap to imagine a tense shoot-out between the man who famously kicked England to the ultimate prize and the young pair with dreams of doing the same one day.

Is he still competitive then; wanting to match or beat the Smiths when they are all together on the training field? ‘As you ask that question, I get a little shiver through me that says this is new; this is something I’ve not spoken about before,’ he says.

‘I just don’t get competition now. When I watch one of those guys do something, the old response would have been, ‘I want to compete with him’, but my new response is, ‘That has inspired a desire in me, to go and search for something – and to want to search for it means that I know I’ve got it’.

‘I’ve worked over the years with all kinds of players like Leigh Halfpenny, Owen Farrell and these guys I work with now. You see them strike a ball and you think, ‘That’s beautiful’. The sound is beautiful. The flight of the ball is beautiful. You see it and hear it and think, ‘I want to strike the ball like that’. You think, ‘I wonder if I could hit it even stronger than that?’.

‘It’s nothing to do with beating them, it is just realising that something might be relevant for me. The question is, ‘How long does that last?’. I used to scroll on Instagram, see someone doing keep-em-ups and think, ‘I can be the best at that!’. 

‘Soon after, I’d be thinking, ‘Actually, I don’t want to do that’! But those things are still relevant to me. The drive is still there to see what is possible.

‘I get it all the time when I see them kick a ball. Other times, I deliberately put myself on a pedestal when I’m beside them and say, ‘Look, what I’m trying to explain is this – see what this brings up in you when I do it’. I can feel, as I say it, the energy flies up in me.

‘But I’ve got to manage that, so I don’t fluff it because I think, ‘I’m trying to look good in front of these guys, what if I don’t do it?’. It’s interesting to challenge myself, as a way of saying, ‘Crikey, you guys are doing this every weekend, can I just come up with it in front of you here?’.’

Many of Wilkinson’s greatest moments in the sport came abroad, notably the historic drop goal in Sydney which sealed England’s finest hour, or his European successes in the colours of French club Toulon. 

But the heat map of his career and his life features a particular hotspot in Surrey. He was born in Frimley Park Hospital and has spent many years going back and forth to the Red Rose HQ; a luxury hotel in Bagshot – exactly 3.2 miles away.

‘I grew up in Farnham, the other side of Frimley to Pennyhill Park (England’s base),’ he says. ‘It’s gone full circle; my daughter was born in Frimley too – not by design, but we moved back to this area because it felt about right for lots of reasons, then suddenly the nearest hospital turns out to be the one I was born in!

‘These things are curious and magical; why you meet certain people, where thoughts come from, where you’re supposed to be, what you’re supposed to be doing in life. It goes back to that magical mind-set – ‘anything is possible’.’ 

These days, Wilkinson can enjoy the five-star splendour of England’s country retreat without the personal trauma which often stalked him there during his playing days, amid gruelling periods of stress and injury. ‘I experienced a lot of very different ends of the spectrum, emotions in that place,’ he adds.

‘There were times of real anxiety, but also great moments with the team. In the middle of my career, going back to Pennyhill in 2009 and 2010, it was a really difficult space for me and there were a lot of tears shed in those corridors.

‘But how I am now allows me to mess about with how I look at my past. People ask me about the World Cup drop goal and I tell the story differently every time, not deliberately but because I am different now, so I see it differently back then. So, I play a bit with my experience of Pennyhill. When I get there, I mostly love being there and it’s the most amazing place.’

On Saturday afternoon, when England take on Scotland at Twickenham, Wilkinson won’t be sitting with Borthwick and his assistant coaches. Instead, he will be up in the ITV studio, watching events unfold, ready to assess it all for the watching public. But his imprint is bound to be visible again in how the home team function, no matter how reluctant he is to accept any credit.

Watch the Smiths and see how they respond when something doesn’t go their way. If the playmakers keep backing themselves, keep believing, keep threatening and trusting their instincts, then that is down in part to the impact of their modest mentor.

Wilkinson tells them that ‘anything is possible’ and all the latest evidence suggests that they absolutely believe him.