The identity of England’s place-kicker in the World Cup quarter-final is reportedly to be decided by a behind closed doors shoot-out between Jonny Wilkinson and Toby Flood.
Wilkinson has been entrusted with the lion’s share of the place-kicking duties in the tournament so far but has been a pale shadow of his normally reliable self with a less than 50 per cent success rate, both with the actual match balls and the replacement ones that caused such a kerfuffle against Romania in the pool stages.
Flood, who has been named at inside centre in the England team to face France, will start in the same XV as Wilkinson for the first time in the tournament and has a far better return with the boot so far, landing ten out of 13 attempts to date.
Anyone who watched Flood against Ireland in the Six Nations earlier this year will know that he’s not the most reliable option himself, but Martin Johnson has place-kicking options and the pair were due to hold a shoot-out at Eden Park earlier today in an attempt to decide who will be handed the responsibility.
The England camp, who have endured more than their fair share of controversies since landing in New Zealand, moved the location of their press conference from Eden Park to the team hotel in an effort to let Wilkinson and Flood practise in peace, even though the match environment will be a far more pressurised scenario.
Golden boy Wilkinson, who scored the drop goal that landed England their only ever World Cup title in 2003, is only six points short of Dan Carter’s all-time Test points scoring record of 1,250 points, but insists he will have no problem handing over the kicking duties to his more youthful colleague.
“Toby and I will both be preparing as hard as we can and we’ll probably make that decision after we’ve been to the stadium,” he said.
“It’s safe to say Toby has knocked some great kicks over already, he’s looking good and he’s in fine form. We’ll see how he’s preparing and I’m preparing. I’m always confident. I’m never afraid to take them. There have been two kicks in this tournament I wouldn’t mind taking back but the rest I’ve been happy with. It’s important that whatever decision we make is for the team.”
England coach Martin Johnson issued a robust defence of the under-fire out half, a man he has soldiered with often in the past, and insisted that he is not worried about pairing Wilkinson and Flood together despite their unfamiliarity with each other in the team.
“Going into a game like this, I don’t think you’d want to be playing against Jonny Wilkinson,” he said.
“Jonny has had a lot of long kicks. You look at kicking stats, a lot of his kicks have been from a long way out. He’s never flinched from having a shot.”
“It’s an exciting combination (Wilkinson and Flood) for us,” he added.
“It’s not a gamble. You always put a lot of thought into your selections, no more so than when you’re in a World Cup quarter-final.”
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ podcast – listen to the latest episode now!
