Andrew: Wilko is simply the best

Now this will take some believing after his performance at Twickenham but the best of Jonny Wilkinson is still to come. He gets better all the time and he will continue to get better for several years.

Six months ago I ventured the opinion that he was the best fly half in the world. If that caused an eyebrow or two to be raised in the southern hemisphere, the matter is now no longer in question. He is the best, but Jonny is such a workaholic that he will want to push the barriers back even further.

He will want to score more tries, to improve his support play so he can be there to finish off what he starts. If you wanted to make a coaching manual on the definitive fly half game, you could take the first 40 minutes or so of Saturday's match because it would provide a perfect illustration of everything you need to see.

He works as hard on his pace as he does on his goalkicking and Steve Black, our fitness coach at Newcastle, deserves credit for developing the speed which Jonny used to such great effect with his searing breaks against Ireland. Once England provided him with quick ball, he became almost impossible to defend against.

Mastering the fly half arts takes time and people tend to lose sight of the fact that Jonny is still only 22. He is beginning to read the game much more clearly now and some of his tactical kicking was out of this world, in particular the little chip off his right foot behind a flat defence for Austin Healey to gather on the bounce at pace.

That is about the most delicate kicking skill in the book and he made it look easy off what is supposed to be his 'weaker' foot - not that you could tell. I defy anyone to show me an example of a fly half who has done as much in one game as Jonny did on Saturday. Mark Ella was exceptional in the great Australian team of 1984, someone with wonderful sleight of hand but not, I suggest, the same breadth of skills.

No, Jonny was as good as anything I have seen and I can pay England no higher compliment than to say exactly the same about the overall performance. Searching through the memory bank, I cannot recall anything better from an English side, which is saying a lot because there have been some great displays down the years.

What makes this team different is that the players have a wonderful capacity to play any game they choose, anywhere and in any conditions. Again, Jonny provides the perfect example. For Newcastle at Leeds the previous week, in really heavy going, he dominated the game with his boot whereas at Twickenham, on a beautiful winter's day, he dominated it with his running.