Toulon breezed into the quarter-finals with a 50-6 rout of Petrarca Padova in Italy.

The big-spending French side took Pool 2 thanks to a seven-try romp, with Benjamin Lapeyre bagging a brace. Laurent Emmanuelli, Fabien Cibray, Alexis Palisson and Gabi Lovobalavu also crossed, while the referee awarded the visitors a penalty try.

Jonny kicked 3 conversions and 2 penalties

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Toulon scored two tries in the final two minutes to take maximum points from their Amlin Challenge Cup clash with Lyon.

They left it late to secure the bonus point but the victory does keep them in control of Pool 2 with a round of action still to play.

Matteus du Bruyn kicked Lyon into the lead with a third minute penalty but Toulon captain Jonny Wilkinson’s deft inside pass led to Leonardo Senatore crossing for the game’s first try ten minutes later.

Wilkinson converted and kicked a further three points before the break to give his side a 10-3 advantage at the interval.

Wing Benjamin Lapeyre pushed Toulon further ahead with his score after 53 minutes but the next score belonged to Lyon with number eight Nicolas Bontinck diving over with six minutes to go.

Toulon’s frantic two minutes began with Pierrick Gunther scoring with a minute to play. Jonny Wilkinson drop kicked the conversion and Toulon went immediately back on the attack from the resulting re-start.

And the hosts got the score they craved with full-back Luke Rooney touching down.

ERC Rugby

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England legend Jonny Wilkinson has urged rugby union to show ‘responsibility’ and address the worrying decrease in amateur participation.

It was announced in 2011 that the Rugby Football Union would lose more than £1million in public funding from taxpayers and the Lottery after a survey identified a reduction in adults playing the game at grassroots level.

The number of amateur rugby clubs in England is dwarfed by other sports, such as football, and the impact is felt at junior level through the minimal availability of coaches, facilities and a lack of links with local schools.

And Wilkinson, who in December announced his international retirement, is concerned after developing at junior level what he believes was the basis for his World Cup-winning career.

“My dad coached me and my brother when we were young,” he told Sky Sports. “That youth rugby period is instrumental.

“But, to a level, it is difficult to quantify, because what I learnt through those Sunday mornings, playing and training, was more than just how to play rugby and the joy of rugby.

Attractive

“It was more about teamwork, ethics, code of conduct, respect, values and all those things.

“It was so easy to understand, because it came in the form of this sport that you loved. The learning was almost subconscious and it set me up amazingly.

“Good, young teams and good, young team environments, there is no doubt about it, are the future of creating great individual players with the total package to lead the country forward.

“The importance is to connect with the youth and bring forward the quality and special side of rugby to make it attractive to everyone. Then of course it is supplying the facilities and accessibility to clubs.

“There is so much to be said for the fitness, the health and for the motivation which comes with great, young team sports. Rugby has that in spades.

“It is just the need for creating an image, an identity, which merits having young kids wanting to get involved. That is our responsibility.”

Sky Sports

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Jonny Wilkinson believes Stuart Lancaster’s appreciation of rugby union’s amateur era makes him the perfect man to instil the correct virtues in a new dawn for England.

Lancaster will name his Elite Player Squad on January 11 ahead of the Six Nations and he has already given indication of a new, firm stance after axing Danny Care over the scrum-half’s drink-drive offence.

England are attempting to rid themselves of the memory of this autumn’s World Cup debacle, having returned home from New Zealand in disgrace after on-field failures mixed with off-pitch scandals.

And Wilkinson has no doubts interim coach Lancaster is the right appointment, despite his status a relative unknown when compared to predecessor Martin Johnson, who resigned in November.

Lancaster’s appreciation of the days before rugby union turned professional in 1995 will, according to England legend Wilkinson, help to develop the correct disciplines, values and motivations among the squad.

“He is very much aware of that era of guys who had just got used to getting paid to play rugby having spent their lives leaving the office to go and train and then play on a Saturday,” the 2003 World Cup-winner exclusively told skysports.com of England’s new leader.

Fabulous power

“Being able to then do that for money gave them an appreciation and an ability to embrace it and make the most of it. I think that added something special to it. For me, it had a massive imprint in terms of creating the values which have since stuck with me.

“These were displayed to me by the England team of that era. I think, certainly, Stuart Lancaster is very aware of the fabulous power that comes with guys who really embrace everything they get.

“They put rugby ahead of everything else and take the team up there with it. I think it is Stuart Lancaster’s job to create the culture and the environment to ensure that it is something that follows.”

One of Lancaster’s early decisions as coach has been to scrap a winter training camp in Portugal in favour of relocating to his local club in Leeds, West Park Leeds RUFC, during late January.

And Wilkinson, who also reached the 2007 World Cup final with England, thinks his country has a lot of improvements to make ahead of the beginning of defence of their Six Nations title.

“The next step for England is to work out where they are and work out where they want to be and quickly work out what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. What is helpful and what is not helpful with regards to achieving the bridging of that gap,” he said.

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English rugby’s golden boy, Jonny Wilkinson, speaks for the first time about the agonising decision of international retirement, the influences on his career and what the future holds.

In the early autumn of 2010, Jonny Wilkinson sat at his home in Southern France and knew something did not feel right. In the company of his partner, mother and father, arguably one of the greatest players in rugby’s history was beginning to wrestle with thoughts of international retirement.

The professional career of England’s iconic fly-half had since it began in the late 1990s been blighted by almost relentlessly cruel injuries, but it was also driven by the constant pursuit of perfection and was crowned by that drop-goal against Australia in the 2003 World Cup final. However, just over one year ago, the unflinchingly-committed Wilkinson was beginning to realise the environment in which he had existed was changing around him.

On the back of promising autumn internationals in 2009, he had scored 50 points at the 2010 Six Nations. But England only finished third in the competition and Wilkinson then had to watch from the bench as successor-in-waiting Toby Flood helped to draw a two-Test series against Australia in Perth and Sydney. Wilkinson started to consider whether his own ambitions could still coexist with the best interests of his nation’s team.

The now-32-year-old’s will to win meant he buried the doubts in the latter months of 2010, but it was only temporary. The former Newcastle star earlier this December announced he was calling it a day with England in order to concentrate on his commitments at club level with Toulon.

International retirement sadly signified that 13 years, 91 caps and 1,246 points were concluded by the notorious debacle of England’s 2011 World Cup campaign. It was far from a fitting finale, but it was not a knee-jerk reaction.

“After the 2009 season, I came back and did the autumn internationals and felt fabulous,” said a candid Wilkinson in an exclusive interview with skysports.com as he reflected on the tough decision of his retirement for the first time in the public domain.

“We lost to Australia and New Zealand, but we beat Argentina.They were good games. I just felt so good. After all the injuries, I felt brilliant. That was probably the last time I felt those conditions were there – it just happened to work. But in the 2010 Six Nations, things seemed to turn around and it was the first time I had ever been hugely confused about everything. I couldn’t work out why or how and it didn’t make sense to me.

“Followed by the tour of Australia, where Toby did very well, I was asking myself the question. That is the moment I remember. I was sat at home in France with my other half and my mum and dad before the autumn internationals in 2010, trying to work out what was happening in my life and trying to work out why rugby was suddenly not feeling simple anymore.

“The decision was clear to me that I really felt I had more to do and to prove. (But) after the 2011 World Cup, there was no moment. It gradually built up and there were times when I felt it was probably right. Other times, when I would come back from a day of training with Toulon, I would think, ‘There is no way I can give up the opportunity to do this’. But then slowly and surely as it wore on, the right and more honest decision came out. There was also a danger of getting selfish about it and trying to prove something to myself instead of saying, ‘What is going to help England go forward so that they can celebrate again?’.”

Wilkinson will fly back to England for Christmas after Toulon’s match against Lyon on Friday night and he will spend the time with his family before returning across The Channel on Boxing Day. It will be the first time in more than a decade he celebrates the festive period without international thoughts and an eye on the coming February’s Six Nations. He will instead be concentrating on preparing for a club game at Biarritz on New Year’s Eve.

Difficult

“I started to realise that the last few years with England had been a combination of me searching for the best of me, as always, but also trying to understand the conditions around me in the squad,” the 2007 World Cup finalist explained. “That’s not what people are doing or who is there or anything like that – it is more just a feeling. Trying to fit in with it. Trying to fit in and find the best of me, and make those two things work together. That has been the whole goal. That has been everything I have put my energy towards.

“For some reason, it has now seemed to be simpler for somebody else to be doing it. That is what happens and it became evident to me. I do like to always think that I know what I can do and that I know what I am capable of. I am still capable of doing that and I am aiming to do that with Toulon and do it better and better.”

Wilkinson did not go through the torment of deciding on his retirement without consulting with people who knew him both as a rugby player and as a friend.

“In that period after 2010, I spoke to people like Mike Catt, Richard Hill and Will Greenwood,” he remembered. “These guys were people in rugby who I felt understood me. These guys could understand beyond what I could do on the field and look more at how I behaved, how I lived life as an individual, how intense and how somewhat irrationally I looked at things every now and again. How capable I was of getting obsessive, counter-productive and a bit destructive.

“To speak to those guys was important, because they had also chosen to move on after rugby. They gave me balanced arguments for looking at it both ways. Ultimately it comes down to the same thing – how you feel, what you want, whether you can make a difference to the team.”

And what of England’s embarrassing World Cup, which was the final curtain of Wilkinson’s international career? A failure to succeed on the field combined with the headline-grabbing antics of the likes of Mike Tindall, Chris Ashton and Manu Tuilagi brought the squad home from New Zealand in disgrace. Manager Martin Johnson resigned and a mass shake-up of the Rugby Football Union is ongoing.

Wilkinson has preferred to avoid the direct fallout from the events of September and October and would instead like to focus on watching the potential of his country under the interim coaching of Stuart Lancaster.
“It is difficult to say, because I have not seen a lot of the stuff that has come out after the World Cup,” said Wilkinson when asked if he thought some of his squad-mates did not match his personally high standards of behaviour and performance. “I don’t read the papers. I have heard a few comments and heard what people have been saying. I didn’t recognise at all anything there in that respect in the way people were training or giving to the cause. It was a massively concerted effort from everyone.

“I think it is the deeper part as well, that do-or-die scenario which comes with the World Cup, which I am used to. You get one every four years and it may be your only one. I have been fortunate enough to do four World Cups and each one had felt like almost the end of the world – every game, every training session. You are on borrowed time and you know you are dealing with things which will change the rest of your life and the lives of those around you. That is how you see it.

“I don’t know what all the comments are (about England), but playing for your team needs to be the be all and end all. The biggest basic in rugby is to just run until you drop. It just has to supersede everything else that comes with playing rugby – whether that is sponsorship, being paid or opportunities that come elsewhere. Those things are great and add colour to life, but they come massively secondary to getting out there and making a difference to the team.

Blessed

“The ability and talent that these guys have is going to come out and it is going to do wonders for the game of rugby in England. Hopefully it will be the exact opposite reaction to the one which has come out of the last World Cup.”

Tributes have poured in for Wilkinson since he decided to hang up his international kicking boots. The choice does not appear to have diminished his popularity and he will forever be English rugby’s golden boy. Indeed, long-term sponsors Gillette are continuing their partnership, which provides an indication of his standing in the public eye

The brand’s manager, Jared Regan, said: “Jonny has achieved at the highest level and always acts with integrity. Jonny is one of the greatest rugby players, even sportsmen, this country has ever produced and we are very proud to be associated with him on Gillette. He perfectly embodies the values we stand for and we are very excited about how we can work with Jonny as he moves into this next stage of his career.”

Wilkinson has himself been deeply touched by the level of support and praise he has received from fans and media around the world. But he could be forgiven for feeling aggrieved by the manner in which his international retirement has somewhat overshadowed his ongoing career at Toulon, where he recently extended his contract until 2013. That, though, is not the case.

“It is up to people to see it how they want,” said Wilkinson. “I have been blessed with some of the responses of support since I made the decision. It has blown me away. I can’t begin to stress how stupidly fortunate and privileged a position it puts me in.

“In a similar vein, the way that I have been supported through my career with Newcastle and England, it is beyond belief. It is like being in a dream world. With Toulon as well, the kind of support is ludicrous.”

But Wilkinson is not one to dwell on past achievements. He is looking towards the future and fulfilling his ambitions in France.

“I cannot express how serious or intense I am about this next stage of my life,” he said. “There is no stepping down for me. Every game I play has to be the very best of me. As a child, I made a pact with myself that every time I took to the field, even as an eight-year-old, I felt like it was my World Cup final.

“Playing for Newcastle, every game was like playing for England. Every game, every piece of preparation, I wanted to be an England player. I said to myself, ‘Every time I take to the field, it is as if I am an England player’. I wanted to be not just an England player, but the best of England and the best of the world. That is what resides with me know.

“There is no step down. It is only a step up. The step forward is to get better. I am so, so excited about that and so the intensity is not going anywhere. It might just mean that I have a tiny bit more free time and no games while the boys do their stuff at the Six Nations.”

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Jonny Wilkinson kicked five penalties as Toulon strengthened their grip on third place in the table with a 20-15 victory over Lyon at the Stade Felix-Mayol.

The former England fly-half struck three times during the opening period, with fullback Romain Loursac on target twice for the visitors, who did well to reach the interval just three points adrift given they had had prop Philemon Tolefoa sent to the sin bin on the half-hour mark.

Loursac levelled matters just over 60 seconds into the second half but Toulon winger Alexis Palisson then cruised over on 47 minutes for the only try of the game shortly after Lyon’s Alipate Fatafehi had been shown a yellow card.

Wilkinson failed to convert Palisson’s score but he responded every time Loursac drew Lyon to within striking distance and Toulon eked out a crucial victory.

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Don’t worry, this is not purely another Jonny Wilkinson eulogy. They’ve been done to death, and he’s deserved every last scrap of the veneration.

But I just thought I’d mention something that was often lost in the rush for deification last week: Wilkinson has not retired.

He has retired from international rugby, which is not quite the same thing. He is still a professional rugby player. Just signed a one-year contract extension at Toulon no less. Last Saturday he captained them to victory against his old side, Newcastle, in the Amlin Challenge Cup. Presumably he will be playing against Lyon in the French Top 14 this Friday night.

But there is no presumption required in stating that he will still be training like a maniac every day, still undergoing kicking practice until les vaches come home.
Those advising Wilkinson to enjoy his retirement are wasting their words. It is not over yet. The pipe and slippers must wait for now.

And herein lies the fascination. How will Wilkinson cope without the lure of international rugby? The former England cricket coach Duncan Fletcher always described the drop from international to domestic cricket as being like “the chief executive going to work on the shop floor”. Doing it intermittently can be tough; doing it permanently must be even tougher.

In cricket Nasser Hussain simply could not face the grind of county cricket. He did finish with a Test century at Lord’s, mind, but still he said: “I don’t think I would have had the fire to carry on, and I have never done anything unless I wanted to do it to the best of my ability.”

Michael Vaughan tearfully resigned the England captaincy and then tried to grind his way back into the side in the shires. He soon conceded defeat. Part of him had died. And part of Wilkinson has now died too.

As he said in his retirement announcement on his own website: “I never ever believed that I would be able to give up on this dream which has driven me to live, breathe, love and embrace the game of rugby from the earliest days that I can remember.”

He clearly knows that this might be a problem. “I certainly have no intention of letting this decision change the way that I approach my training and preparation for games. In fact early indication shows me that I’m actually getting more intense about it,” he wrote.

Maybe if anyone can, Wilkinson can. There were a telling couple of lines in Will Greenwood’s encomium in these pages last week: “No matter how long a session was, he [Wilkinson] would do each drill as if it was the only one, giving his all each and every time. I still don’t know how do you do that.”

It is a shame that Wilkinson did not have a fairy-tale send-off, like, say, Wales’s Shane Williams did against Australia. But then England did not have a little cash cow onto which Wilkinson could leap. Instead they just had a bucking bronco, from which administrators, coaches and players have been hurled in a post-World Cup shemozzle.

But Wilkinson was not thrown off. He chose his time to dismount carefully and understatedly. He had earned the right to announce his international retirement. The greats can do that. Too many D-listers think they can do the same when really they should shut up and face non-selection with grace.

Wilkinson would have been dropped. I did not see his name in any long-range England side for the forthcoming Six Nations. But he deserved to depart on his terms.
Sporting retirement, especially in cricket, has certainly changed over the years. Each year I write the retirements’ page for the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.

It is becoming ever harder. When is a cricketer retired now? There I was this year merrily penning Martin van Jaarsveld’s cricketing obituary after he had turned down a previously agreed move from Kent to Leicestershire. He had retired, I thought. But then it emerged that he was still playing for the Titans in South Africa. He had only retired from county cricket! For goodness’ sake.

The truth is that old cricketers don’t retire any more. Not properly anyway. Most simply go to a better place in the sky to play Twenty20.

Now rugby players just go to France, it seems. In Toulon Wilkinson deserves the money and the lifestyle, but please don’t expect him to enjoy the rugby. For obsessive perfectionists like him it’s far too serious for that.

Telegraph

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