Jonny still aiming for perfection

Even when mentioning casually how he had hurt his neck on Friday, he was quick to add that it was just a trifle.

It was heartening to see him so relaxed and chatty, sounding not only as if he fancied that he would make it on to the Lions tour to New Zealand after being given the rest of the season to prove to coach Sir Clive Woodward that he merits a place, but also that he believes the rebuilt Wilko could be a superior model even to the one that kicked England to the World Cup.

"What's kept me going through all the setbacks is the thought that I'll be back and I will be so much better than I was before," explained Wilkinson down at the Marathon's headquarters.

"While others have been playing international rugby, I've felt perhaps I could get one over them by doing more kicking, better kicking, getting stronger and fitter and doing more training.

"When I come back I'll be faster, more experienced and I'll have had a hard education in life after all these injuries which may have allowed me to mature quicker and be more composed on the field.

"They're the fruit of the hard work that few have seen me do behind the scenes. They'll be my advantage on the field. I feel fantastic."

Friday felt fantastic, too, because it seemed to Wilkinson as if normality had returned. His abnormal normality, that is, which includes signing autographs for every single hunter so that he ends up being the last to leave the club at midnight.

"Do you know, it's felt as if I'm getting my simple life back?" he said. "So even although I know I'm bound to face not just adulation but disappointments, I'm almost looking forward to that as well because it's so much better than doing nothing, which is what I've been doing. I'd been training hard but unable to get out there and be even in the fight. And that's been frustrating."

Heck, he almost sounded as if he had savoured a welcoming boot in the head, accidental of course, from England team-mate Steve Thompson. "He thought he hadn't touched me but I told him I'm not one to feign injury. I've had enough of the real thing," laughed Wilkinson.

Woodward was on the phone promptly this weekend to see how Jonny's knee had held up and the widespread assumption is that even a far from match-sharp Wilko would be a must for the tour. Yet Wilkinson, while evidently optimistic about stating an unanswerable case with a couple of games, insisted he would be prepared to make the most brutal call of all if necessary.

"Playing for the Lions might be the biggest thing in the world for me, but even if I get selected I might have to say if I'm not right I won't go. It's a matter of being professional. The only reason I will have the ability to tell Clive if I'm not ready is because I couldn't bear playing if I wasn't completely ready."

He knows there are critics who are sure he can't be ready, others who say he'll never be the same player as he was in Sydney and those who feel he needs to be protected from himself more than Richie McCaw and the rest of the All Blacks. Yet when he recalled how he has fought back from so many depressing days, such as those after the neck operation when he could barely lift his arm, the eyes so blazed with determination you'd never bet against him.

Before our ambassador for Lucozade headed off to the 23-mile mark to hand bottles out to weary fun runners who probably felt they must be hallucinating, Wilkinson couldn't help saluting Radcliffe's tour de force.

"She's out there attacking, with all the cameras and that pressure on her. You have to say 'incredible'," he mused. "Very few people like her come around and I've got a long way to go before ever seeing myself on that level."

You couldn't help smiling. Wilkinson talks about himself like an aspiring kid, not as someone who, unlike Radclffe, has already achieved his sport's absolute pinnacle. Yet it is exactly that hunger to prove himself all over again that should delight us all. By the timely rediscovery of his own "simple life", he may have made the lives of the men in black rather more complicated.