Rugby World Cup-winning hand-cupper Jonny Wilkinson says he really didn't want to have to play rugby for "the last 15-18 years" of his career because of the anxiety which came with his obsessive-compulsive habits.

Wilkinson also said at Public Health England's annual event at the University of Warwick that he got through pre-match tension by having an internal conversation with an imagined angel from the future, iNews reports.

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"We’d have a conversation where they say ‘everything went well’ in the game, you kicked good goals, you win," he said. "The contract offered all this and if I signed, I wouldn’t have to play the game. I know for a fact that for probably the last 15-18 years of playing, I’d have signed the contract before every game. I couldn’t care less. Just give me the result."

The overwhelming anxiety Wilkinson lived with reduced his working week to "six and three quarter days every week just in a mess followed by two hours of bliss". The constant pressure which he put himself under to iron out any inconsistencies and weaknesses in his game turned post-game chats into exercises in competitive modesty.

“I was just so obsessive in everything I did," Wilkinson explained. "I even tried to be the most humble guy you could possibly be. In the post-match interviews after a big win, I’d look back at myself and say, ‘Yes, that was so humble.'"

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