Jonny was great but Jason made the real difference
JEFF PROBYN
A FRONT ROW VIEW OF THE GAME
I MUST admit I get slightly irritated with seeing social media best players posts that seem to be put up by people who really don’t seem to know what they are looking at.
This even goes for our World Cup win in 2003 with everybody proclaiming Jonny Wilkinson as our match winner, whereas in fact it was someone else who made the difference that enabled the team to win.
No, I’m not decrying Jonny’s drop goal, it was a masterful piece of work under the pressure of such an important opportunity at that stage of the game which provided
England with the winning points. However, let’s not forget the player who made the real difference, the Fun Bus himself Jason Leonard, below, who had to come onto the field as a substitute for Phil Vickery. Vickery was obviously struggling and unable to subdue his opposite number, giving away many penalties at the scrum which allowed Australia back into the game. When Jason came on he immediately made an impact at the scrum that reassured the referee that he had the measure of his opponent and no more scrum penalties were awarded against England.
