A World Cup winners' tale

Maybe Brian Ashton will find the alchemist's touch in the nick of time.

Maybe four years of mediocrity will be rendered irrelevant, and a new winning formula forged from the adversity of failure.

But the odds are against England still being able to call themselves world champions by the end of October.

Chances are that mantle will be moving on, whether to the All Blacks, the Springboks or the French, and the memory of that night of nights in Sydney will become ever more distant.

A dozen of the 2003 squad have survived the ravages of the intervening period, and will head to France aiming to become the first team to successfully defend the Webb Ellis Trophy.

But for other World Cup winners now retired, the arrival of rugby's next global gathering brings cause for reflection on that momentous day, and the scenes that followed.

Rewind to 22 November 2003. Jonny Wilkinson's drop-kick sails over, Trevor Woodman catches the Australian kick-off, Mike Catt boots the ball into touch. Game over.

Cue pandemonium, on the field in Sydney, among the massed ranks of red rose supporters in the Telstra Stadium, and in every bar, pub and clubhouse around England.

Centre Will Greenwood, after high-fives and hugs with the hero of the hour, Wilkinson, sank to his knees on the pitch, trying to come to terms with what had just happened.

"It was a great time, an unbelievable feeling to have achieved something so special," he told BBC Sport.

"We had no idea what was going on back home. We were still a na�ve bunch of guys who had won a big tournament.

"We went for a few beers together, realised we had achieved something pretty special. But until we hit Heathrow, we had no real comprehension of what had gone on back home."

Thousands were there at 5am on Tuesday, 25 November, as captain Martin Johnson emerged, clutching the World Cup, from the "Sweet Chariot" plane that brought the squad home.

The chaotic scenes as they struggled through the arrivals gate signalled the start of a dizzying period when rugby players became celebrities, for a short time at least.

Two weeks later three-quarters of a million people thronged the streets of London as the squad paraded the trophy on an open bus tour from Marble Arch to Trafalgar Square.

Then they went to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace, and later that day enjoyed a champagne reception at 10 Downing Street.

"It was great to be involved in all that," Greenwood said. "It's not the sort of thing you do every day so it was a lot of fun, great to be able to tell your grandchildren about.

"But that wasn't what it was about. It was never about trying to achieve fame and glory.

"The World Cup was about trying to fulfil an ambition with a bunch of guys who you'd sat down with months before and said: 'This is what we are going to do'. That is the overriding memory for me."

In the immediate aftermath of the final England scrum-half Matt Dawson hailed victory as a "life-changing moment".

So it proved for him and others as new opportunities - in the media, on celebrity TV shows, on the after-dinner speaking circuit - arose as their rugby careers faded.

After the initial surge of public interest though, Greenwood says most of the team returned to the relative anonymity bestowed on rugby players in a football-obsessed country.

"It might be hard for foootball stars, but at our level, it didn't make that much difference," he recalled.

"People said to me 'it must be difficult going shopping now?' but no-one recognised us for the most part.

"The likes of Jonny and "Johnno" might have found it a bit more difficult, and now you've got "Daws" with his dancing and Kyran (Bracken) with his ice skating who are public faces.

"But the majority of the side could still walk down the street with no issues whatsoever. The experience doesn't change your life, it enhances it and gives you wonderful memories."

Greenwood now brings the intelligence he displayed as an artful centre to our television screens as an analyst and co-commentator - he is part of ITV's team for the forthcoming World Cup - and his columns for a national newspaper.

"Financially being a World Cup winner has been very beneficial and it has given me the opportunity to do different things and meet a meet a variety of people I perhaps wouldn't have done otherwise," he said.

"But as far as my family and me and my mates are concerned, the people I spend 99% of my time with, life is still exactly the same."

Winning a World Cup may not have changed Greenwood, but it certainly changed the face of English rugby.

The last four years have seen interest in club rugby soar with record Premiership crowds and increased participation at grass-roots level.

Greenwood is an ambassador for the Rugby Football Union's "Go Play Rugby" initiative, designed to bring back former players who have drifted away from the game.

He can relate to them. When he played his last game for Harlequins in May 2006, Greenwood, only 34 now, said he would never play again, concerned about the possibility of injury and the impact on his time with a young family.

But recently he got a phone call asking him to play in a Sevens tournament in Bulgaria with some old friends from the amateur era, and having caught the bug again, played in another one a couple of weeks later.

"I thought I'd be terrifed, but I absolutely blooming loved it," he added. "The old days of an ice bath and two days without alcohol beforehand went right out the window!

"It was exhausting but a lot of fun, the physical exertion and the banter, and reminded me why I played the game in the first place. You create bonds in rugby that can give you a support group for the rest of your life."

Especially when those bonds are forged winning a World Cup.

Source: BBC Sport