England hero Jonny Wilkinson. (Getty Images)

By Frank Malley, PA Chief Sports Writer, Sydney

In many years to come when hopefully football is not treated with so much manic importance, athletics is drug-free and rugby grounds are packed to capacity, sports fans will come to view the 2003 World Cup final as a defining moment in British sport.

They'll look at the score, England 20 Australia 17, and the fact that the match went to extra-time and they'll deduce quite rightly that it was a desperately close run thing - a night when the nerves of players and spectators alike were shredded.

They'll look at the England scorers, a Jason Robinson try and four penalties and a drop-goal from Jonny Wilkinson and deduce that 'Wilko' must have been some kicker. And they'd be right.

What they would never fully realise, however, is the pressure under which Wilkinson produced the most brilliantly composed performance of his young life.

You had to be in Australia these past two months to appreciate that. Yes, we all know about the 'Stop Jonny' T-shirts, the 'Wilko' voodoo dolls and the obsession with the Aussie media in trying to paint Jonny as the most tedious cog in an England wheel of boredom.

Some of that was tongue in cheek, some of it was so ludicrous it was shameful. Wilkinson, despite his insistence that he does not read the papers, would be inhuman if some of it had not tugged at his nerve-ends, especially considering that was the butt of most questions aimed at him in copious press conferences.

But Wilkinson, whose obsession with practice is legendary, rose above it all to produce his best when it mattered most. Some, though never Wilkinson, would say he won the biggest game of his life almost on his own - and that is a capacity possessed by few sportsmen in modern times.

Strangely, most have worn the same number 10 shirt as Wilkinson. We're talking Pele, the Brazilian recognised as the world's greatest footballer and whose goal-scoring-and-making has not been bettered before or since.

We're talking Argentina's Maradona, renowned for his 'Hand of God' goal against England in the 1986 World Cup but a man who for so long carried a mediocre team on the back of his own extraordinary talent. Exalted company, but that is why Wilkinson will be pursued by sponsors, snapped by the paparazzi and offered millions to endorse products over the next few years.

None of that, however, comes close to the service he did his sport on Saturday.

The irony was that his real worth was picked up by an Australian in the shape of head coach Eddie Jones, who was generous in his congratulations for England and glowing in his praise for Wilkinson - a man whose prodigious workrate is an example to kids worldwide.

"Probably many of them aren't going to be sitting down for Christmas dinner with their parents," said Jones. "They'll be out there practising their kicking."

No player could do more for his sport. Wilkinson can infuse interest and dedication in rugby in future generations just as Tiger Woods has the capacity to get children away from their computer games and down to the driving range.

That is the real worth of what is bound to become known as the Wilkinson World Cup.

And if that seems fanciful then you should have witnessed the young lads in replica England shirts queuing for the ferry back to Sydney after spending a day collecting autographs trying to catch a glimpse of their heroes at their Manly hotel.

One placed a miniature rugby ball on a makeshift tee and adopted the Wilkinson kicking stance - body crouched, hands out in front like a parked kangaroo - before swishing the ball over a pair of makeshift posts.

"That's just won the World Cup," he shouted to his friend.

And there you had it - the power of Wilkinson.

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If ever a coach was vindicated in victory then it is Clive Woodward, the man who has brought true professionalism to English rugby.

There are those who portray Woodward as arrogant and smug and worse.

But no-one can say he is not without vision. For two years now he has been telling the world that his England side were on the verge of something special.

Every Englishman wanted to believe him, yet somehow most couldn't get over that southern hemisphere mystique.

Saturday's World Cup final triumph against Australia in their own Telstra backyard - England's fifth successive win over the men in gold - drove a coach and horses through that.

So what do you call the man who wins a World Cup? It has to be 'Sir Clive.'

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So many sportsmen don't know when to hang up their boots.

Some go too early like Bjorn Borg who was barely 26 when he quit tennis and has regretted it ever since.

Others, most notably Muhammad Ali, go on too long.

It's a big call for England's 'Dad's Army' of Jason Leonard, 35, Neil Back, 34, and Martin Johnson, 33, though Back was adamant he would be soldiering on, reasoning: "Why retire when you are on top of the world?"

The problem with that is that there is only one way to go.

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Funny world sport when winning can cost you a potential fortune.

If England had not prevailed on Saturday then Ben Kay would have had to answer for the aberration which saw him drop the ball in the act of scoring during the first-half.

For a moment, he admits, the prospect of a lucrative pizza advert beckoned - the sort from which penalty-clanger kings Stuart Pearce, Chris Waddle and Gareth Southgate have benefited in the past.

Thank goodness Wilkinson slotted that drop goal.