The Guardian's Stephen Moss gets up close and personal with everyone's favourite cerebral sportsman, Jonny Wilkinson.
"It's surprisingly difficult to interview someone who has a black eye and gashes on his nose and neck, especially when you're sitting two feet away from him on a sofa. Jonny Wilkinson, England rugby legend, hasn't been in a fight on the way to the Rosslyn Park rugby ground (we meet in a messy backroom full of balls he has to sign for some unspecified promotional purpose). He got knocked about the night before playing for his new French club Toulon against Connacht, has flown from Ireland to London to spend a day coaching competition winners for his sponsor Volvic, and is heading back to Nice this evening.
"We are not going to get long together, which is frustrating because Wilkinson – England's starriest rugby player in the past decade, but also one of its most injury-prone – is just about the most cerebral, intense, self-questioning sportsman I've ever met; as complex as the choreography of his famous place-kicking routine. He looks like a Californian surfer, and there are times when he talks like one too, trying to explain his philosophy of sport and life.
"I had intended a softish opening – "You must be knackered after last night's match" – but immediately, in his gentle, earnest, slightly nasal voice, he is telling me why he could never be a rugby commentator in a sporting afterlife that is now not far away. "I'd be the commentator that TV stations would want rid of straightaway – I would be so non-committal with regard to players' performances."
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