Wilkinson to repay Ashton's faith

Jonny Wilkinson has been given the opportunity to go through the 1,000-point mark for England on Sunday – and is desperate to repay the faith shown in him.

Jonny Wilkinson has been given the opportunity to go through the 1,000-point mark for England on Sunday – and is desperate to repay the faith shown in him.

Wilkinson, four points short of the landmark figure, was by no means certain to keep his place against Italy in Rome after his part in the shock defeat to Wales last Saturday.

But rising star Danny Cipriani stays on the bench with head coach Brian Ashton saying that he thinks Wilkinson is still “the best man to be on the field at the start of the game”.

That was hardly the biggest vote of confidence Wilkinson has ever had, but it will do for the 28-year-old Newcastle pivot.

Wilkinson, preparing now for his 66th cap, will remember his 65th mostly for one nightmare pass which flew over the head of replacement Cipriani as England, so dominant in the first half, capitulated in the second.

Ashton said there were “one or two” angry players anxious to make amends against the Italians, but Wilkinson states firmly that he is not one of them.

“I'm not one for getting angry – I'm just not an angry person,” said Wilkinson.

“But there is a great deal of frustration mixed with the disappointment, which was enormous, as you can imagine.

“There's a lot that we want to put right and I'm excited to be back involved.

“I don't need to sit in a dark room thinking about what I could have done differently. You know that as soon as the final whistle goes.

“Maybe I lost a bit of sleep, but I didn't sit there cringing at myself. It's a fantastic lesson to learn.”

Asked whether he was worried about being axed, Wilkinson said he was more concerned with his play than the thought of being dropped.

“The thing that makes me anxious nowadays is watching the video and thinking I am going to see something I could have done better,” said Wilkinson.

“Something that's going to contradict the feeling I had when I'm out there.

“I'm not anxious about selection because I'm doing the best I can and, if there's someone better, then it's not fair that that person isn't here and I am.

“I have massive belief in this organisation and, if that call comes, then that's essentially being done in my best interests.

“Selection is out of my control – we're playing rugby, not a political game, and I don't want to be here if I'm not the right person.

“The key is beginning the process of putting things right – and putting them in the right perspective.

“It would be less than honest of me to say it didn't affect me, but being a perfectionist was doing me more damage than good.

“I know I can do better than that, but, at that moment, I was doing my best. I would be some kind of miracle worker if I said it was not something that got to me, but it's not a major deal. What is is that I want to do my best.

“I've thrown thousands of passes in the last two weeks and not thrown one as bad as that. That's the frustrating thing, not what people have written.

“I don't read newspapers at all and I don't need to know what's being said. One team went from one end of the field to the other and put points on the board that completely changed the game.

“The momentum switched through a series of compounded errors and I made one of them. You can look at the decision-making, but it comes down to the fact that they were basic errors.

“I didn't make the decision to throw the ball over the guy's head. I base myself on being accountable for all I do. I threw the ball over the guy's head – end of story.

“Like Iain Balshaw when he went for a kick. It would have been a good kick, but it was charged down – the execution didn't go his way.

“We have a fabulous squad of players and coaches who are working towards a worthy goal and competition [for places] is fantastic.”