TODAY’S Powergen Cup final against Sale Sharks should be a great occasion, though it is yet another one that I will greet with feelings of regret. It is my lot to be on the Newcastle Falcons bench carrying on water and messages for the boys. “World Cup-winner turned water-carrier” is not quite as ironic as “World Cup-winner turned virtually unemployed”, which is what I sometimes have felt in the past few months, so it’s an improvement on that and I will be pleased to be out there.

I really want the boys to win and experience that fantastic feeling of a cup victory, but I know, for me, there’s going to be a nagging feeling that I’ve not really been involved.

Yet there is no lack of motivation for us: this is a massive occasion and the guys have worked hard all season to get to it. However, there is another thought that will be with us and that is Soa Otuvaka, our Tongan team-mate, who so tragically died of a brain tumour last month. It’s not as if we’re saying, “Let’s go out there and do it for him”. It’s not as blunt as that. It’s more a case of understanding how much someone has given to a team and added to the other players’ lives, and finding the form that would make that person proud.

Meanwhile, the news on my injured right arm is that it continues to improve. It’s not as if I’m going to be a one-handed water-carrier today — it’s not that bad — but, frustratingly, it continues to improve at a pace slower than I had originally hoped. In the grand scheme of things, there is still a long way to go. It is impossible to give a date for a return. Having set myself targets before and come up short, I’m not going to do the same again.

At one stage I targeted the end of March. Then I targeted this cup final. Yet here it is upon us and I’m not even close to playing. I didn’t realise it would be this long and I have been encouraged by the rate of improvement, which has sped up recently. But we are dealing with indefinites here. It could speed up even more and, likewise, it could plateau. Of course, I am still ambitious about going on England’s summer tour to New Zealand and Australia, but time is going by pretty quickly and my rate of improvement would have to increase for that to be possible.

I’ve always been intrigued by and fearful of the concept of long-term injury. I’ve never had anything remotely like this. Even with my eight weeks out with a shoulder problem a couple of years ago, I was able to pick a game to come back for and roughly stick to it. This time, since my operation, I’ve been training six days a week and I’ve been so positive and motivated by the prospect of coming back fitter and stronger than before, but I ’m finding out how helpless all my positivity and enthusiasm can be.

I will get a more exact impression of how well I’m doing next week, when I go for specific testing. My last check-up was three weeks ago and the stats showed a 10 to 12 per cent improvement. I know I’ve come quite a long way since then, but I need to be up to 80 to 90 per cent before I can play again and I would have thought that I’m quite a long way off that still.

In the meantime, there have been a few distractions to keep me going. Last Saturday we held a benefit game at Kingston Park to raise money for Soa’s family. Paul Gascoigne and Peter Beardsley were part of the entertainment, taking conversion kicks at half-time, and I had the pleasure of being their kicking coach the day before. I knew both of them anyway, but trying to tell those two how to kick was both hilarious and futile. For a start, it’s not as if they’re short on natural kicking ability. Secondly, the moment I started trying to tell them stuff, about 1,000 balls suddenly started flying around. Gazza was just putting them down and smacking them. We can’t have done badly, though. On the day, Gazza converted five out of six kicks and Peter was nine from ten.

I was also on Parkinson, which was a bit of a break from my norm of staying out of the limelight. But that was the only interview show I’ve done since the World Cup and having watched the programme when growing up, I felt privileged to be asked and somehow wanted to do it. The other guests were Michael Portillo and Jeremy Clarkson and I chatted with them beforehand. I was nervous to begin with, but when I went on it felt like having a chat with someone in your own living-room.

Tomorrow morning I will be the official starter of the Flora London Marathon. I’ll probably be more nervous about that than going on Parkinson. I think I’ve got to fire a gun. I’ll use my left hand.

Jonny Wilkinson answers readers’ questions in a weekly Q&A on Times Online, home of the England hero’s official site.

To ask Jonny a question go to: www.timesonline.co.uk/jonny