Let Jonny run the show, says Bates

'The key to his future is giving him experience in how he wants to play the game - being a real dominator, which I think he is becoming.

'I think if he doesn't then England will be a lesser team. If they do not allow him to do that, they will simply not be maximising their resources. He is a real thinker about the game and wants to play it in a fuller and more expressive way. If you do not let him do that then we will not get the best out of him.'

Bates also criticised Lions and Wales coach Graham Henry for saying that Wilkinson was 'playing well above his years'.

'Jonny is exceptional with great skills,'said Bates. 'He works very hard. It is no accident and it has nothing to do with age. I think that is a typical remark people say about young blokes.'

Indeed, although Wilkinson, at 21, looks impossibly coltish - you should have seen him surreptitiously devour a packet of wine gums during the flight from Newcastle to London last Sunday - do not forget that he was the baby-faced assassin who poleaxed Emile Ntamack in the defining moment of the international at Stade de France last year and who kicks goals with all the finality of a master undertaker hammering nails into a coffin.

Newcastle manager Rob Andrew recognises how important that increasingly famous left foot will be tomorrow.

He said: 'I believe very few people and players really understand what someone like Jonny - or Neil Jenkins - goes through.

'Not only are they kicking all the goals, as fly halves they are making the calls, the big decisions, kicking for touch, trying drop kicks.'

Wilkinson has planned no extra kicking practice this week.

He said: 'I have been kicking well so I will try to stick to the same routine. I will try to relax a bit and forget about it for a while.'

As hard as Wilkinson is physically - watch him tackle - he is even harder mentally.

But if you see him off the pitch, he will be the one in the corner reading a comic, pulling wine gums from a bag.