Phil Larder England’s Word Cup-winning defence coach on Jonny Wilkinson.... “The last training session before flying out to the World Cup, we did this very demanding drill: make ten tackles on ten players running at you down a narrow grid. The first time we ever did it, we averaged six out of ten. This time, everybody got ten apart from two players, one of whom was Jonny. I thought we’d done exceptionally well. “We then had to go to a farewell reception, but Wilko came up to me and said: ‘I’m not happy, I missed two tackles, I need to work on my defence.’ I said: ‘We’ve got to be on the bus.’ That evening, Jonny wouldn’t eat. I went over to him and he said: ‘Phil, I can’t get on the plane tomorrow having missed two tackles.’ I said: ‘We’re flying at 10am. We’ve got two weeks to the first game to work on your defence, and you’re not a worry, you’re the best defender in the squad.’ He said: ‘You don’t realise. I wouldn’t be comfortable.’ “So the next morning, I had ten players up at 5.30am to run at Jonny so he could make his tackles. He got ten out of ten, had a big smile on his face and got on the plane.”
Posted on: Sat, 24 May 2014 15:28:39 +0000