Jonny in tears over new blow

Jonny Wilkinson admitted today that he wept tears of frustration when he suffered the knee injury that could rule him out of the entire Six Nations championship.

The England captain, who awaits further specialist advice today, will definitely miss the opening games against Wales and France next month.

He damaged the medial ligament in his left knee in only his second comeback start for Newcastle against Perpignan on Saturday which, while it does not require surgery, will take at least a month to heal.

Wilkinson initially feared the injury could have kept him out of the game for up to nine months.

"That immediately set me going inwards and asking myself questions: could I deal with another nine months out? What had I done to deserve this?," revealed the injury-jinxed fly-half.

"I wasn't even thinking of the immediate future - the Six Nations, the Lions - I was thinking in the grander scheme of things: how do I come back to rugby again? This is what the tears of frustration were about, the knowledge that I'd put everything into this, it's what my life is about, the feeling again that maybe it was over for another long period of time."

Wilkinson, 25, is trying to remain positive as he begins his rehabilitation from his third major injury since the World Cup final 14 months ago. "I'll be able to keep some training going so I shouldn't lose too much fitness," he said. "Obviously I know what that means regarding the Six Nations and it's a nightmare that I'll be unavailable for part of it again.

"So I'm hanging in there. I'm trying to stay positive and not get depressed by it and it's becoming a case of - that it's happened now and there's nothing I can do about that and that, of all the negative outcomes when you injure a knee, I did manage to come up with a reasonably good one."