Perhaps most curious about the forthcoming return of Jonny Wilkinson to the international stage is not his firm belief that his best rugby is still ahead of him, but his contention that one particular area in which England fans may expect to see an improvement is his kicking. And there we were thinking that part of his game was quite decent already.

An indication that he may not be kidding us, though, was provided at the Stade Mayol at the weekend, where Wilkinson kicked five out of five conversions plus two penalties in Toulon’s 46-28 victory over Bourgoin. And yes, he came through fit. He was replaced late on, but only after he had capped his afternoon with a try, collecting his own chip before touching down between the posts.

So when Martin Johnson announces the England squad this afternoon, the irony is that at a time when all around him are going down injured, Wilkinson is a dead cert and fit.

The physics of the new, better-kicking Jonny are explained with an amusing analysis of why the old version was so flawed. The analysis comes from Dave Alred, the kicking boffin supreme, who has been Wilkinson’s specialist coach ever since they first worked together 14 years ago.

Alred was in Toulon last week, as he has been in three or four-day blocks every three weeks since Wilkinson’s move. And it is Alred’s view that: “A lot has dramatically changed.” And thus he explains that “I am absolutely convinced that the best is yet to come”. Of the old days, Alred says that Wilkinson’s kicking technique was flawed, “a bit like a golfer who plays a shot off his back foot” and that it was prey, on occasions, to becoming “a lottery under pressure”.

Yes, he used the word “lottery”. And he said that Wilkinson’s drop-kicking “was an area where there was always a degree of hit-and-miss”. As with professional golfers when they make tweaks to their swing, we are talking minutiae here with Wilkinson’s kicking style. To the man in the stand, the changes may be almost imperceptible, but to Wilkinson and the kicking brains trust, the alterations are vast.

Alred says the whole project has been a case of “building from square one”. This is because of the dislocation to his knee in September last year, so he “had to learn to re-use the knee”. “The injury and coming back to rebuild was a great opportunity. So many players come to me saying: ‘This is how I kick, now improve me.’ But with Jonny, we could start again.” The main change has been in the shifting of body weight. Previously, according to Alred, Wilkinson’s kicking style put too great a physical demand on the left leg. “Everything now is on the move,” he said. “There is no static kicking whatsoever. If you let the leg dominate, as before, it becomes a lottery and under pressure, the shape of that swing can change.”

That is where the comparison to the golfer playing off his back foot comes in. And that is why he believes that Wilkinson is “particularly better under pressure” and he says that this will be best felt in kicking dropped goals.

These are healthy changes, too. Imagine a kicker, and at the end of the follow-through, the leg completely straightening; there is obviously a natural limit to the extension, but kickers are prone to pushing the extension to its limit and thus putting pressure on the muscle groups around the kneecap. This is called “hyper-extension”, which Alred describes as “a no-no in terms of career longevity”. And thus: “We changed a lot of the mechanics of the kicking, to ensure there is as little hyper-extension as possible.” The other area that Wilkinson has hyper-extended is the pressure of the perfectionist that he lived under. “The old tantrums have gone,” Alred said. In years past, Wilkinson was unable to accept a poor practice session and would force Alred to stay out training with him, sometimes after nightfall.

As Alred said: “We have the saying now: ‘Can you kick ugly?’ ” Uglier, healthier, and apparently better.