So There's Jonny!

By Luke Edwards on Jan 30, 07 10:23 AM

For anyone who remembers what happened to Newcastle United's Michael Owen while on England duty last summer, the return of Jonny Wilkinson to the international fold will have sent a shiver down the spine this week.

Lest we forget, Owen played just 11 times for Newcastle following a £17m pound move from Real Madrid and then ruled himself out for virtually an entire second season when he caught his knee in the German grass and - to use a medical term - screwed his knee cap!

There are some United fans who mockingly refer to the club's record signing as England's Michael Owen, such is the fascination of the national media with his international, rather than club career. But it is Newcastle who pay his extravagent wages and Newcastle who have to fix him when he's broken, not England.

As for Wilkinson, he's had more comebacks than Duran Duran, Take That, East 17 and All Saints, but the brutal statistics are, since he kicked the winning drop goal in Rugby's World Cup Final in 2003, Wilko has not played a single second of international rugby and has only managed a few hours in a Newcastle Falcons shirt.

But, after a 50 minute run out against Leicester last weekend and with new England coach Brian Ashton desperate to salvage something from the wreckage of Andy Robinson's car crash regime, Jonny's back for the first Six Nations clash with Scotland on Saturday.

Look, it doesn't matter that he hasn't played a full game for more than three months, it doesn't matter that the Falcons could help him ease his way back into full form, nope, England needs him and that, as they say, is that!

I bumped - not literally, he might have injured himself - into Jonny a couple of weeks ago at Newcastle United's training ground where, unsurprisingly given his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder for kicking rugby balls through posts, he was practising kicking rugby balls.

He looked fine and said he "felt great." Oh well, that's okay then, off you go Jonny, England expects.

I really hope nothing bad happens to him this weekend or in any of the Six Nations matches this spring, not only because he deserves better luck with injuries, but because the Falcons deserve some better luck as well. They have have been his supportive crutch, they have picked up the physical and mental pieces after yet another breakdown and they have paid his wages.

In fact, to put things into context, in the time Wilkinson has been ravaged by injuries, the price of petrol has risen by 10p a litre, as has a pint of milk, Busted were at number one with Crashed the Wedding and Apple had only sold 977,000 ipods compared to the 88.7m it had shifted by the start of 2007.

Oh and good luck Jonny, make sure you grind the Haggis munchers into the Twickenham dirt!