Jonny Wilkinson invited to join England staff by new boss Eddie Jones

Wilkinson’s drop goal famously won the 2003 World Cup final for England

Jonny Wilkinson (Getty)

England head coach Eddie Jones wants the country’s record points scorer Jonny Wilkinson to work with the current team’s kickers, George Ford and Owen Farrell.

Wilkinson’s drop goal famously won the 2003 World Cup final for England but he has been out of full-time work since retiring from playing for Toulon in 2014.

Jones met Wilkinson last weekend and said: “We would like to get him involved but he is quite a private person. We are having chats about it.”

Shortly before the World Cup began he said his search for a new life after playing had made him feel he was “breaking apart” but he was praised for his role as a television pundit during last autumn’s tournament. He has also worked as a part-time coaching consultant with his Toulon successor Leigh Halfpenny. He has been living near Ascot since returning from France and met Jones at a supermarket near the England team hotel in Bagshot, where the coach is staying temporarily.

Jones says he wants his England team to contain five world-class players, like the 2003 side – he name-checked Wilkinson among them – and said it would happen only if there was a desperation among the players to get better.

Asked if his meeting with Wilkinson had been social or a chance to pick the former fly-half’s brains, Jones said: “A bit of both.” And Wilkinson’s advice? “Get them kicking more,” said the Australian before adding: “Watching the World Cup I thought England had a lot of potential, and coming here now I have seen there is another underlying growth of potential. It is just a matter of how we bring it through. I am looking for that attitude and how desperate they are to be a better player.

“I met a stand-off [Wilkinson] last Saturday, I had coffee with him and after that he went and did a session [practising] kicking – [even though] he doesn’t play any more. Why was he one of the best in the world? Because he did that. That is the difference. No-one tells him to do it because he is retired but he still wants to be a good kicker.

“How many of these players do that now is the key going forward. Our job as coaches is to create that environment where it encourages them to do it. If we do we will get those players coming through. The players need to be learning.”

Ford and Farrell had good kicking statistics during the World Cup. But while Wilkinson’s obvious area of coaching expertise is kicking for goal and position, he could also offer insights into what it takes to win big Test matches.

Asked if England had a number of players of similar standard to each other, Jones said: “That is a consideration, definitely. Why that is I am not sure but I have got to find out because there shouldn’t be.

“There should be a gap between the really good players and average players. A good player has that bit extra two or three per cent. He does that little bit of extra analysis, goes and stretches, goes for a swim and takes a bag of balls and goes and kicks.”

Wilkinson has kept his hand in, tweeting in December that he was “back kicking as a student with the teacher”, referring to Dave Alred, his long-time personal coach and mentor.