This question sits alongside the one always posed to a slightly older generation than mine about John F Kennedy, but do you remember where you were when Jonny Wilkinson kicked THAT drop goal?

This is an easy one for me to answer because at the time I was working at the Lancashire Evening Telegraph in Blackburn on the day England beat the Aussies 20-17 in Sydney in the Rugby Union World Cup final in November 2003.

The Telegraph had an early edition on the Saturday, but then I had the time to take in the game at the nearby Brewers Arms on Great Bolton Street, which I believe ceased to exist in 2007 to make way for a crossing, who were doing a ‘back the boys with a bacon butty and a beer breakfast’ promotion – not the snappiest title but they were very decent butties.

The direct links for the paper with the England team were that centre Will Greenwood and full-back Iain Balshaw were both Blackburn-born, and Balshaw had attended Stonyhurst College, near Clitheroe, as had half-back Kyran Bracken.

So interest was rife and then Brewers landlord Chris was more than repaid for getting out of bed to set up the big screens and get to grips with the frying pan, before opening up early, as his pub was packed to the rafters.

From a personal point of view coverage of the tournament had meant a number of early morning interviews with the said players on the other side of the world, but even more fun was the diary the sports desk set up with Will’s dad Dick Greenwood.

Dick was himself an England international playing at flanker, and had represented Cambridge University, been captain of Waterloo, played for Lancashire and had been part of the England coaching set-up after retiring as a player – and on top of all that he was a geography teacher and head of rugby at Stonyhurst.

His insights from marginally outside the England World Cup party were very much a highlight and really somebody somewhere should have collated those articles into a book (why do I always get these ideas so long after the event?).

Anyway, why all the reminiscing you may ask? Well Jonny has only gone and hung up his boots.

In many ways Wilkinson created a whole new outlook for rugby union in this country – and not just because of the goal that won a World Cup.

Along with others around him like national coach Sir Clive Woodward, and sports psychologist Steve Black – who was with Huddersfield Town under the reign of Lee Clark – Wilkinson redefined what had been seen as a game dominated by ex-public school types into a truly professional sport.

Jonny’s attention to detail didn’t make him the most flamboyant of players, but his metronomic precision in his kicking, and his ability to defend as well as attack at half-back, picked him out as a thoroughly modern player in a sport that was still trying to find its way after a fairly recent switch to full-time playing and paying in 1995.

The strange thing is that unlike many sporting greats Wilkinson’s defining moment came early in his career.

That extra time drop goal to nick the World Cup out of the Australian’s hands in their own backyard came just three years after he had announced his international arrival in June 2000 when the No10 kicked eight penalties and a drop-goal in a 27-22 win over South Africa at Vodacom Park in Bloemfontein, which Wilkinson would later hail as the turning point in his career.

For all Wilkinson has achieved with the national side and his most recent club French outfit Toulon in the 11 years since THAT drop kick, it is still the moment Jonny had us all out of seats – or dropping our beer and bacon sandwiches – on that Saturday morning that will ensure Jonny is a national treasure forever.

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