So, Jonny Wilkinson will turn his hand to a spot of magazine editing this week when he takes the chair at London freesheet Sport for their pre Six-Nations issue.
If the content is anything as long-winded and cryptic as England's No.10's stock answers to the simplest of questions, the capital's tube network could look as though it's been attacked by some airborne form of Mogadon.
It's not that we'd rather Wilkinson reduced his mediaspeak to the levels of your average Premiership footballer, it's just that he seems to have made such a concerted effort to give more than a half-hearted platitude to journalists' questions that the inquisitor is left bereft not only of the question he asked in the first place but wondering what the hell Wilkinson's point actually is.
It's as though in trying to search for a meaningful response, Wilkinson loses himself in a sea of introspection.
Frustrating though it may be, you can forgive it all if he saves all his clarity of thought and deed for the 80 minutes on the field.
But therein lies the problem. His efforts to kick start a stuttering England backline in the autumn were as indecisive as his post match ramblings. When a 70-cap World Cup winner starts casting his gaze towards the management in the stands for direction, there is something seriously wrong.
Either Martin Johnson and his coaches are so proscriptive in their style that they have frozen solid the decision-making abilities of the most experienced player in their side, or, having given him the reigns to run things on the muckier side of the whitewash, he has proven himself to be less commander, more light infantry.
If either of Shane Geraghty or Danny Cipriani had been fitter, in better form or simply more to the England brains trust's liking, one of them might well have relieved him of the burden that he seems to struggle under.
Fortunately for Wilkinson, Martin Johnson has given him another opportunity to prove that he can be the lynchpin to this England side.
To do that, he needs to get rid of the clutter in his head and concentrate on getting his team ticking. And if Wilkinson can achieve all that against Wales this weekend, he will succeed in injecting some much needed optimism into English rugby. Just don't ask him to tell you how he did it.
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Date published :
02 Feb 201008:33:01
