The 27-year-old made his sixth comeback from injury since that famous night in Sydney in November 2003, playing the second 40 minutes in Newcastles 32-21 win over Sale Sharks at Kingston Park.

Wilkinson, famed for his near-obsessive training regime and attention to detail, conceded his unfortunate run of injuries has forced him to take a more realistic approach to training.

Ive been desperate to come back but Ive actually torn the groin two or three times since November so my comeback is a little bit later, maybe a month or so, than had been planned, he said.

I have to reduce some of the training Ive done in the past because I just cant do it any more. Some people may call it age but for me its down to the injuries.

Sometimes I need to realise that I will wake up in the morning and just wont have it in me to go out and smash balls on the training field all day and risk not playing at the weekend.

He added: Not playing has had a massively detrimental effect on my life.

Wilkinson came on as a second-half substitute for Mark Mayerhofler as the Falcons cemented their Premiership status with an impressive second-half display.

The fly-half played a tidy 40 minutes of rugby as the Falcons ran in three second-half tries to condemn Leeds Tykes to relegation.

Wilkinson revealed he has had to keep contact to a minimum in training this week after aggravating the latest abductor injury.

Waking up I had to accept I wasnt going to feel as prepared as I normally am, he said.

I wasnt able to kick on Saturday (because of the injury) and one lesson from all this is that life has to change for me a little bit.

This time Im just going to take it one game at a time and use the end of this season as a bit of a springboard.

Despite his training concerns, Wilkinson admitted he was delighted to be back playing again, and was happy with the teams performance against the league leaders.

It was a lovely day to be playing rugby against an ambitious team like Sale that enables both sides to play the sort of rugby they want to play, he said.

Im a bit sore because I was thrown in at the deep end having not had much contact in training. Im taking it one day at a time but I was desperately keen to get back. It felt good.