By Leipziger
February 7 2007

So who, at the start of the season, really expected that we would see Jonny Wilkinson, despite his uninjured and free summer, in the England team at the start of the Six Nations? Surely after two and a half years of injury hell, he would struggle to maintain the fitness let alone the form required? Both proved true. Having just had a look at the stats, Jonny has started just 18 of our 69 regular Premiership matches since the World Cup Final, or 18 of our last 79 league matches all told, although he has come on as a substitute in six more. But 24 appearances out of 79 matches (33 of our last 116 competitive games in total) is a poor return by anyone’s standards.

Even during his latest comeback, Wilkinson’s first match time for almost three months at Leicester, for me he did nothing particularly special. Yet there he was in the England team. Was he really fit and able, and did the other supposed saviour of English rugby Brian Ashton see something I didn’t?

Well, the facts seem to have proved me wrong when I thought he wasn’t ready. Jonny not only scored 27 points, including a (controversial) try, becoming the record Calcutta Cup match scorer on his 53rd cap, well over three years after his 52nd, but he was even Man of the Match (although I hear Harry Ellis ran him very close).

Yes, I didn’t see the England game on Saturday, I was busy trying to get interviewed by Channel 4 outside a West London football ground on the North v south question (I told the lad I went to the match with about this, he said if he’d been asked he’d still be extolling the virtues of the North now!).

Still though, what can we as Falcons fans take from the fact that our talisman, and one of the best and most famous players on Earth who plays for us, is back in international rugby? Well, for a start I hear that the RFU have sold £600,000 worth of extra tickets for the Italy game on Saturday on the back of having Jonny back.

In turn, if the bloke stays fit and playing, the next time he plays at KP should be Easter Sunday v Northampton, and I think we could expect a bumper attendance, and for the following two games as well. The Jonny impact on our crowds, when it is properly exploited, is undeniable.

But more importantly than that, it is clear that when Jonny is in the Falcons team, he gives the players around him a huge lift. It must be quite a boost looking across the dressing room and seeing one of the world’s best players wearing the same shirt as you, just as it plants doubt into the minds of the less experienced members of the opposition. Having him in the team for a consistent period could help propel us up the table.

On the negative side, when we play Wasps on the next international weekend after this one, we could well be without Wilkinson AND Toby Flood if both are selected for England. This leaves us really with only Joe Shaw or Matthew Burke as fly-halves – the former is a dangerous and in-experienced choice in that position, the latter should really not be moved from full back where he is still a world-class player.

But perhaps we should just forget any potential negatives though and be proud that our longest-serving player is back in the England team, is being worshipped again by rugby fans around the country, and, after all, he’s building up his match fitness for the Falcons’ end of season run-in ;-).