Jonny: My Autobiography (46 page)

After the game, Shelley and I walk down to the beach for a crêpe. That’s about as relaxed as I can ever get. While we are there, France complete an unexpected win over the All Blacks in the other quarter-final, an evening game, and now it’s England v France in the semi. Marseille is suddenly buzzing with excitement. The roads are full of cars hooting their horns, people on scooters shoot by waving flags, and I become aware that, from their point of view, I am one of the people standing between them and the World Cup.

I think we’d better head back, I tell Shelley. I don’t want to be seen out now. I want to get back to the hotel quickly.

So we start walking back, but we don’t go back the way we came. We avoid the main roads and the crowds, and find a route back that takes us up some side roads. It takes longer but, more importantly, it’s quieter.

At one stage, though, when the crowds and commotion are unavoidable, I find myself ducking behind trees and road signs and clinging to the shadows. This is, of course, quite funny, but I’m nervous about being out in public when we’re playing France in the next round. Just get me back to the safety of my hotel room and my collapsed ceiling.

We move to Paris and I can feel the tournament intensifying.

Thursday evenings are a time to look forward to. Floody, Taity and I go out to eat. It has become our weekly fixture. We don’t go anywhere smart, just round the corner. This is time out, rare, precious time to switch off from the World Cup, just once a week.

Other than that, I struggle to turn off the switch. I try to distract myself with the ridiculously bad
American Pie
films, the later ones in the series, numbers four to six. Chill and enjoy them, I tell myself, deal with the game later. But it’s just so difficult to escape. I disappear into a film for five minutes and then reality comes crashing back. I feel more anxious, more nervous, and have to walk round the room, pacing one part of it and then another.

I try to work it out. Just sit here, stare out of the window, try to meditate, try to find some peace. But when I stare out of the window, everything tells me about this game that’s coming. I wish it was here or cancelled, but it’s neither, and I just have to wait.

On the eve of the game, I get back to my room after kicking practice to find that a newspaper has been delivered. I haven’t ordered it. I’m trying not to see the papers. But the massive picture of my face on the front cover is unavoidable, as is the huge headline in a big tabloid typeface: ‘Ayez peur! Ayez très peur!’ Be afraid, be very afraid.

And then it all comes rushing back. People are counting on me. I don’t want to be the one who fails them.

In the changing room before the semi-final, Catty says to me Wilko, this is your time, buddy.

I understand what he means. We have been in situations like this ever since 1998. We’ve linked up, helped each other, we know the game in the same way and we both know what to expect in this particular game. It’s going to be tight, edgy, intense with lots of emphasis on defence. It needs us to be ahead at the right time, to keep the scoreboard ticking over if we
can. But, above all, we need to hang in there to the very end and take our shot if and when we get it. This is the time when I’m supposed to come alive. This is a game for me to finish. That’s what Catty is saying, and it’s a great compliment to me.

And the game follows the pattern we thought it would. We get a fantastic early lead when Josh scores in the corner within two minutes. Great start. But then it is dogged and tight, and France start working their way back into us. No one wants to make a mistake. Especially the place-kickers.

The French start pulling ahead. Three penalties converted by Lionel Beauxis put them 9–5 up, but we get another precious penalty. As is the way, I grab the ball and immediately look at the number on it – two, one of the ones that leaks left. In this batch of six, there are two balls I do not want to kick, two and six. Six is even worse than two, less of a leaker, more of a blatant slice. So as soon as I see I’ve got two, I throw it out to the ballboy on the side of the pitch and ask him to throw back his. He sends me back the number six. Surprise, surprise.

I contemplate kicking the number six ball over the stand, but I throw it back to him and get number two back again. All I want to do is hit this kick straight, but I’m swapping balls with a ballboy and trying to work out in my mind how far right I should be hitting it.

I hit the target. We are 9–8 down.

We struggle to get back at them. We struggle to get close. France nearly score but Joe Worsley intervenes with a last-ditch tap tackle. And then, at last, we are down their end again and we have a penalty – 11–9 up. I take my chance with a drop goal – 14–9. And then it’s over. The no-hopers are in the final.

After a game, a lot of the guys recover in the ice bath but I prefer to get on the bike. It’s always been my way. So I’m on the bike, in the warm-up room outside the changing room, pedalling away with Calvin Morriss, one of our fitness experts.

I don’t want to get out of my kit. It just feels so damn good to win sometimes. I’m back in the moment I’d hang on to for the rest of my life if I could – the transition between winning the last game and not having to think about the next one.

Calvin says that we’ll do 10 to 15 minutes on the bikes, but I go on for 25, and every couple of minutes I take up the effort for a 10 second spurt. I don’t feel knackered, I’m in my own world and I could go on for much longer. I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to go and get changed. The quicker I get changed, the quicker we start talking about the preparations for the next game and the quicker this moment subsides. So the more I can hang around the changing room, the longer this feeling exists. The other boys pass me in their suits on their way out, but I carry on pedalling.

Eventually, back at the hotel, I struggle to sleep. After a late-night game, I’m never a good sleeper. Winning a World Cup semi-final doesn’t help the process.

I go for a stroll before bed, just to try to tire myself out, but when I do hit the sack, I have a pain in my stomach and my back. I feel the grazes on my knees burning and I cannot lie with the bedsheets touching me. I sleep for an hour.

My mind won’t stop racing. What’s this week going to be like? What was last week like? What could I have done better in the game? I’m just wired.

At 5.30am, I realise it’s a losing battle and go downstairs to the team room with my DVD player and a guitar. I play a bit of Arctic Monkeys – not that anyone would recognise it – and mess around on the guitar, and about an hour later, the door opens and Lewis walks in. Exactly the same deal. That’s funny. I know he suffers from night-after games, too.

This is an opportunity to share a special moment. We talk about the game and how we feel. I’m so proud of what we’ve done. We have dug in our heels and dragged the belief from out of our hearts. And now we have a final to deal with.

The week leading up to the final is not going to be easy. Not so much because we are facing South Africa, who have already beaten us 36–0, but because of where I am in my mind. I know I have slipped backwards.

I’d like to spend the week enjoying the company of my teammates, but being in the team room with them reminds me too much of the game that’s coming. So I lock myself away a bit. At least I can control that environment. I ask Shelley to bring me in a load more DVDs. I try to help time disappear by losing myself in anything I can find on the TV. Literally anything will do, although my cause is not exactly helped when Ainsley Harriott starts asking the guests on
Ready Steady Cook
so where will you be watching the big game on Saturday? That’ll be the one I’m playing in, then.

I wish my ankle would improve but it remains a compromise. At this stage, it’s so stiff that Pasky performs what he calls ankle surfing on it. My foot hangs over the edge of a forgiving surface and he stands on it, bouncing up and down. I’m still having treatment on it every day. Before the Australia
game, I took a couple of painkillers, which is hardly ideal. If this was regular-season rugby at home, I simply wouldn’t be playing.

The thing is if South Africa are really smart, they will have worked this out. All my career I have kicked with both feet, but in four games here, I have hidden my right foot almost completely. I haven’t kicked once on it in training, and in games I have tried it just twice – two drop goal attempts, two misses, one hit the post. If the Springboks have sussed this, they’ll know I’m always going to use my left foot, which also means putting all my weight on my bad right foot. Knowing this would definitely help them and hinder me.

On the eve of the game, backs coach Mike Ford slips the same printed sheet under my door that goes to everyone. On it are key thoughts to take into the game, South Africa’s strengths and, in big capitals through the middle, COMPETE ON EVERY PLAY. NO SURRENDER! NO SURRENDER! Handwritten on my sheet are the words: Jonny, your game, your tournament, your World Cup! Good luck. MF.

In my notepad, I write more mental reminders to myself: