Wilkinson drowns his sorrows

Teetotal Jonny Wilkinson has admitted drowning his World Cup final sorrows in a post-match “blow-out”.

England’s star fly-half also revealed the ankle injury that kept him out of the deposed world champions’ opening two pool games had not fully cleared.

Wilkinson, who partied with his team-mates and princes William and Harry following Saturday night’s 15-6 defeat to South Africa, wrote in his Times column: “I suspect that it is widely known that I am teetotal.

“Well, I broke the habit of pretty much a lifetime after the game on Saturday night and had a bit of a blow-out. It was the first time in years and simply seemed the right time and the right thing to do.

“A huge bond has been formed in this squad over the past few weeks and I didn’t want to break it.

“After most games here, people have done different things in different groups, but after the final on Saturday, it seemed right to remain as a group, all as close and tight as we have become.

“I am proud to have been in this team and in this squad and I wanted to show that.

“It also helped to be together like that, to get back to the hotel and then go straight out again. Anything, I felt, rather than stop and ruminate on what had just gone before. There will be plenty of time, I know, when I’ll be feeling the pain of having lost the World Cup final, but our Saturday night was more a case of putting that off. We actually managed to have a lot of fun, but I tell you, I certainly felt rank as a result of it.”

Despite the final heartbreak, Wilkinson insists England can be proud of their World Cup defence after recovering from an appalling start to the tournament.

He said: “It remains the case that we have had an incredible journey just to get this far. My mindset before the final was that if we lost, getting there would mean nothing. But I’ve gone beyond that already. We achieved so much so quickly; that, I hope, will be my abiding thought and not the pain of the final.

“Indeed, it was something of an achievement to get some of us there at all. The fact is that my right ankle – the one I turned in our first training session in Versailles all those weeks ago – has been giving me trouble throughout the tournament.

“I have been having treatment on it pretty much every day and, for the first time, I had to have treatment on it at half-time on Saturday.

“Phil Pask, one of our physios, said that the rehab on the ankle here was three or four weeks shorter than he would have liked. Normally we would not have pushed the comeback so quickly, but I was up and running on it after only 10 days and was patched up sufficiently to play in the Samoa game. The medics did a wonderful job.

“When I get home, I am going to have to reassess the ankle and let it recover properly. Out here in France, I haven’t been able to kick on the right foot at all. I didn’t kick once on it in practice and I didn’t use it once in any of the games except for three dropped goal attempts that all missed.”