Wilko villain or hero?

Having watched him play ever since he came on to the international scene I am starting to get worried. When not under pressure he is simply superb and he was faultless on the 03RWC. However, in close encounters he now consistently makes two errors of judgement.

1. He takes on very long kicks at goal where clearly he does not have the power or accuracy to succeed. He should know his limitations and play accordingly. Against Argentina and Scotland there were occasions where a touch kick was what was required but he made the wrong decision. Of course you can blame the skipper but Wilko should know his comfort zone and advise appropriately.

2. In tight games he becomes almost completely blinkered to the drop goal option when scoring opportunities exist outside him when in or around the opponents 22. Today it was Flood that gave the scoring pass. I don't think Wilko would have.

I am now very confused as to who should start at 10.

I agree about the touch kicks. In bad weather, those long range kicks are too far for Jonny. In general, I would have preferred touch kicks regardless of Jonny or Flood.
But he played well outside of that. So, I agree the decison at out-half is tough. Ths is why MJ gets paid all those millions.

doctor_grey wrote:Ths is why MJ gets paid all those millions.

Johno probably cares little for his salary, but I bet Kay and his agent wish he were on millions.

One thing Id take you up on there about his 03 eperformnace, he was poor for the majority of the final. Everyone remebers thr drop gaoioal he made, not the kicks he missed.

I certainly agreed with his recall earlier this year, Flood had gone off the boil and Wilko was playing like a demon. He earned the start shirt for the WC but I would question if he should keep it for the final.
Maybe teh decisions to keep going for kicks that werent on wasnt entirely down to him and it may have bbeen a direction from Johnson but it did seem that England were determined to allow scotland to keep the game close.
Finaly on an attack when they couldve looked for a DG to secure the losing bonus point instead flood was standing flat and wide and they got the try to win the gake and top the pool. Maybe a coincidence but I felt there were several occassions when they couldve seriously pressudred scotland in the 22 and backed themsleves to score. When they have done that England havent had trouble crossing the try line.

His long tactical kicking game has never been his greatest asset.

On the plus side he did look to get on the ball and run it ofrward a few times, and there was the monster smother (tackle?) he put in and waould have been on hand to stop butteringers de Luca getting his bonus if he had managed to pick up the ball.

One of the faintly annoying things is that pass that flood made - which was wonderful - is the sort of thing wilkinson can do very well as well - at least he used to - but you dont see him do it very much any more

So he misses three long and difficult kicks - when we don't know whose choice it was to kick for goal - but he nails a great penalty and DG when required. And people still ask if he's a villain?

The "blinkered to the DG option" is nonsense. In a game like today you needed the scoreboard ticking over - and JW did just that