LONG READ How 'Sir' Jonny Wilkinson inspired a generation of French kickers

Many in France know him not as plain old Jonny Wilkinson but ‘Sir’ Jonny Wilkinson. It was the sports newspaper L’Equipe who anointed the Englishman in the final season momentous career in 2014.

Sir Jonny signed off by steering Toulon to a domestic and European double. I remember being in the Stade de France for the Top 14 final, dumbstruck by the sound of thousands of Frenchmen and women belting out ‘God Save the Queen’ as Jonny enjoyed a lap of honour.

A decade later and Wilkinson is as revered as ever in France. He featured last year in a documentary to mark the 30th anniversary of the Top 14. His name also cropped up during an interview with France fly-half Matthieu Jalibert expressed his wish to work with Wilkinson on the technical side of his game.

Before the recent ‘Crunch’ Wilkinson and Thierry Dusautoir appeared in a commercial sponsored by a French bank, and after the match he and Thomas Ramos was seen in discussion.

One wonders what they were talking about? Perhaps Ramos was reminding Wilkinson of all the times his boot brought down the Bleus.

That was the era when French threequarters was known for their flakiness. Frederic Michalak, for example, was a more gifted footballer than Wilkinson but his weakness was his inconsistency. Francois Gelez, Thomas Castaignede, Francois Trinh-Duc, Lionel Beauxis, Jean-Marc Doussain and David Skrela were the same. When they were good they were good, but when they were bad…

One of the more remarkable Test rugby stats is that no French player features in the top 30 leading points scorers. Italy and the Home Nations are all represented as are the four southern hemisphere nations, leaving France as the only tier one country without representation.

Thomas Ramos should sneak into the top 30 at some point in the next year. He’s currently scored 563 points, 88 shy of Argentina’s Felipe Contepomi, who occupies thirtieth spot. No other French player has scored more than 500 international points.

The former England Lewis Ludlam joined Toulon in 2024 and the following year remarked: “Jonny is a god here. He’s like the lost Jedi. Everyone tells stories about him – he’s a mythical figure!”

France for years had a laisser-aller to goal-kicking. It was almost as if the whole rigamarole bored them. Hit and hope was their approach. Then Wilkinson turned up at Toulon in 2009. His attention to detail, his relentless quest for perfection opened French eyes. His work ethic became legendary, not just at Toulon but it spread by word of mouth across the country. The French had never seen anything like it: a player who spent hours alone on the training field fine-tuning his game.

The former England Lewis Ludlam joined Toulon in 2024 and the following year remarked: “Jonny is a god here. He’s like the lost Jedi. Everyone tells stories about him – he’s a mythical figure!”

In 2016 I interviewed Antony Belleau, 19 at the time and finding his feet at Toulon. He had joined the club in the summer of 2014, weeks after Wilkinson had hung up his boots, but the Englishman was still employed by Toulon as a mentor. “Obviously it’s been great to work with Jonny Wilkinson at Toulon,” said Belleau, now with Northampton Saints. “He comes down for a week each month and we work on all my skills, including my goal-kicking.”

Belleau, Ramos, Jalibert, Romain Ntamack, Melvyn Jaminet and Antoine Hastoy all belong to ‘Generation Jonny’. They were impressionable teenagers when the Englishman ruled the Top 14. Ramos made his senior debut for Toulouse in February 2014 aged 18, three months before Wilkinson retired.

He didn’t start any games in the next two seasons and was loaned to Colomiers in the ProD2 for the 2016-17 season. That was the making of Ramos. He scored 347 points in 24 matches, a model of consistency and focus that astounded Florian Nicot, a teammate at the time and now part of the Colomiers’ coaching staff. “We’d never seen anything like it ,” he recalls. “To be honest, he really did blow us away…To be capable of putting in a performance like that, once in a blue moon, why not, but to repeat it weekend after weekend, that was quite exceptional.”

Ramos’ kicking success rate in the Six Nations is 84.85 per cent, second to Dan Biggar of Wales [85.44%]. Only Jonny Sexton has a better conversion rate from wide-out within 10 metres of the touchline.

Ramos seems to perform best when the pressure is greatest, as he demonstrated against England in 2024 and 2026 in kicking the winning points at the death. As the headline in The Times stated last week, Ramos “is the goalkicker you’d stake your life on”.

Ramos’ kicking success rate in the Six Nations is 84.85 per cent, second to Dan Biggar of Wales [85.44%]. Only Jonny Sexton has a better conversion rate from wide-out within 10 metres of the touchline. Since he made his debut for France in 2019, Ramos has the best success rate of any kicker from any tier one nation.

Despite his efficiency, there’s a sense among some in France that Ramos hasn’t received the global recognition he deserves. He has scored the most points in the last four Six Nations championships, an unparalleled feat in the modern era; yet he has never won the Six Nations’ Player of the tournament and has only made the shortlist only once (2023). Nor has he ever been nominated for World Rugby’s Player of the Year.

It’s not as if he just kicks penalties; Ramos has scored ten tries in his 52 Tests, four more than Wilkinson managed in his 91 England appearances.