The familiar image of Jonny Wilkinson going for the posts
© Getty Images
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Paul Ackford, writing for the Sunday Telegraph, pays tribute to Jonny Wilkinson.
"It’s been a bad few weeks for the icons of 2003. First Martin Johnson went, forced out by a small group of self-serving players who were unable to live by the values Johnson himself modelled.
Then Sir Clive Woodward’s return to the elite end of English rugby appeared to go south when the performance of the senior England team became a matter for the new chief executive, Ian Ritchie.
And now Jonny Wilkinson has taken leave of the Test arena, the only environment which can truly validate his obsessive search for perfection. Ah well, at least 2003 should never again haunt the current regime as it seeks to establish itself.
Wilkinson’s departure is the saddest by some distance. You can imagine Johnson and Woodward surviving beyond rugby. Indeed Woodward self-evidently has. But Wilkinson? That’s not such a certainty."
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