Jonny Wilkinson: ‘It took a few years for the pressure to really build. And then it exploded’ | Andy Bull

Jonny Wilkinson, England’s World Cup winning fly-half, speaks about his battle with mental illness and why no amount of trophies can ease the pain of depressionIt is October 1999, and a 20-year-old Jonny Wilkinson is sitting on the edge of a bed in Clive Woodward’s hotel room in Paris. Woodward has just told Wilkinson that he is dropping him to the bench for England’s World Cup quarter-final against South Africa at the Stade de France that weekend. Woodward has chosen instead to play Paul Grayson, who is eight years older and has a dozen more caps. “I remember it so well,” Wilkinson says now. …