END WILL BE JONNY ROTTEN

ABOVE: Wilkinson uses his fear of not playing again to get the best out of himself

JONNY Wilkinson fears the day he doesn’t have a team to play rugby for any more.

World Cup-winner Wilko is set to return to make his first England appearance in almost two years in next weekend’s opening autumn international against Australia at Twickenham.

And the iconic fly-half, who is looking to increase his 1,032 international points tally, says he uses the fear of not playing again to get the best out of himself.

He said: “The thing that gets me sometimes is watching whatever rugby game that’s on TV.

“I see someone do something and am thinking, ‘I reckon I could get that into my game’, or ‘I should work on that because I think I could improve my game’. I fear the day when I wonder if I can do that this week – and realise I don’t play for a team any more.”

Wilkinson has spent much of the last six years – since his drop goal won England the World Cup – fl itting between the treatment table and surgeon’s operating theatre.

But he has been given a new lease of life since quitting the North East for the warmer climate of Toulon in the south of France.

And Wilkinson confesses that he hopes all the injury problems he has suffered may even extend his career.

He added: “I don’t know what I would have been like if I had have been playing for the last six years, right now.

“I think it would have been handy not to have had the bumps and bruises around the place and also the odd surgery.

“But maybe, without those months off, I wouldn’t feel as fi t to play rugby now. At the age of 30, that’s not a bad feeling.

“I don’t feel like a guy who is coming up to a fourth World Cup. I don’t feel like I have been playing that long – and maybe it’s because I have not been playing all those years.”

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