JONNY WILKINSON HAD no answers when asked to explain his mysterious dip in kicking form on Saturday.
The fly-half missed five penalties and only scored three kicks in a narrow 13-9 win over Argentina in Dunedin, telling reporters that he “felt good” going through his kicking routine on the night.
“You concentrate on what you can control, which is kicking the ball,” he insisted. “It felt good and it felt right. It wasn’t going over and that’s difficult – to know what to correct when it feels very, very good.”
Coach Martin Johnson was none the wiser about his fly-half’s failures and revealed that he congratulated his kicker on managing to keep his concentration once the full-time whistle blew. He told the BBC (audio):
“(Jonny) kept taking his shots. They (Argentina) missed shots as well, there seemed to be long-range kicks for both teams but he kept going at it, got us ahead and gave us a four-point margin.
“I don’t know if wind was an issue – you’ll have to ask him really – but it was that sort of day. They missed kicks, we missed kicks but you have to be there at the end to win it, which we did.”
Argentina’s Martin Rodriguez also had a difficult day with the boot – missing six penalties – but coach Santiago Phelan refused to point the finger of blame at his kicker either, insisting that the six missed penalties were not the only chances his team had to score.
“Kicking is part of the game but you can score through other opportunities,” he insisted.