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The shadow that appears over the Land of the Long White Cloud every four years is looming large.

Even more so this time, since the potential for further pain and humiliation is right on their doorstep.

A nation of four million at the end of the earth expects their status as the world's number one rugby team to be belatedly adorned with a second World Cup victory, 24 years after the first. Not too much to ask, is it?

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With the World Cup finally upon us, Jonny Wilkinson is once more in his element.

Given his long history of orthopaedic calamities, it seems slightly miraculous he is still around at all.

And yet here he is, 12 years after his first World Cup, eight years on from the swing of his right boot in Sydney that changed his life forever, preparing for his fourth global tournament.

If that puts him in rare company (only 11 others have played in four or more), Wilkinson is not in New Zealand to make up the numbers, even if when it comes to World Cups, he has plenty of them in his locker (most overall points, most penalties, most drop-goals in the tournament's history).

The remarkable thing about his latest incarnation is that, at 32, not only is he in the rudest health of his rugby life, but once again he is the man shouldering England's hopes of success.

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