Flying the nest?

Dec 16 2007 by Neil Farrington, Sunday Sun

AS odd couples go, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau had nothing on Jonny Wilkinson and Steve Black.

One of the latter duo is a near-obsessive compulsive, privately-educated, Home Counties-reared, supposed semi-recluse.

The other may well have created the template of the archetypal Geordie: a bluff, larger-than-life (physically and otherwise), gregarious graduate of the school of hard knocks and the university of life.

But, like Lemmon and Matthau, they are for keeps.

And no one knows that better than the management at the Newcastle Falcons.

So I can only assume that if the management are willing to part with Black (sorry, such is his kinship with Wilkinson – not to mention several other players – that I don’t buy the idea he left of his own accord), they would be willing to part with Wilkinson too.

And that raises the obvious question of whether the Falcons can continue to take flight without the star of their cast.

The less obvious question is whether they can take flight without Black.

Make no mistake, he and Wilkinson are surrogate father and son.

If you want a comparison, think of the bond between Ryan Giggs and Sir Alex Ferguson – and of whether Giggs would have stayed at Manchester United without Ferguson – and add super glue.

Remember too that Wilkinson has little financial need (out of contract next summer, the potential to earn substantially more elsewhere) or rugby reason (the Falcons, unlike the aforementioned United, are hardly top of their tree) to stay.

Sure, he has feelings for Newcastle – the city and the club. And his basic decency is as beyond doubt as his sense of discretion. Thus, in turn, there was never any doubt that he would neither condemn his club for letting Black go nor hint at his future plans this week.

But what price Wilkinson staying if he feels the Falcons have treated Black with precious little decency . . . and thus feels unwanted himself?

For their part, Newcastle will be wondering where else they could be spending the wages of a player whose profile is at odds with his fitness record.

What they might also think about is the symbolic significance of him leaving.

The Falcons’ average gate, though down this season, is well above its level when Wilkinson arrived a decade ago.

And the poster boy has not just brought punters through the turnstiles. For it can be no coincidence that where he led, youngsters like the Tait brothers and Toby Flood followed – and followed in his image.

True, those locally-sourced youngsters may shine all the brighter in his stead, but how many others will be inspired to take up the game?

More immediately though, there is the question of how close Black is to the team-mates Wilkinson may leave behind.

Mathew Tait, another Falcon who could easily find more fame and added fortune elsewhere, is certainly a fan. Jamie Noon is another.

And even a relatively uneducated eye like mine can see that keeping the bulk of their vaunted back division together is in the Falcons’ best interests.

Together? The impression I get right now, in the immediate aftermath of Black’s departure, is of a club fraying at the seams.