By James Standley BBC Sport at the Causeway Stadium

Wasps 43-29 Newcastle Wilkinson dismisses fears

On Sunday, European and English champions Wasps outgunned Newcastle 43-29 in a cracking match in front of a sold-out Causeway Stadium.

Wasps scored some blistering tries and produced the sort of powerful performance that carried them to glory last season.

But the main topic of conversation after the match was not about Ayoola Erinle leaving Wallaby great Matt Burke clutching at thin air, or Joe Worsley's mighty display.

Instead the post-match chat revolved around someone from the losing side. Such is the pulling power of Jonny Wilkinson.

And there was plenty to talk about, with an incident just before the hour grabbing most of the attention.

Wasps hammered down the middle and when play moved away, Wilkinson was left in obvious pain nursing his right arm.

From the sidelines and the way he was first holding his arm and then gingerly shaking it, it looked as though his long-term neck problem had recurred.

Wilkinson is only six matches into his comeback after surgery and an agonisingly slow rehabilitation.

Australia and South Africa loom and at the moment Wilkinson still looks all too mortal for England fans to rest easy

The operation was supposed to cure him from getting so-called "stingers", when compression of the nerve in the neck leads to a fiery, painful sensation in his right arm.

And for several minutes it looked as though it had all been in vain.

Wilkinson shakily returned to the fray and noticeably favoured his right arm for the first few minutes, but he battled through it and by the end looked much as he did at the start.

Afterwards, he calmly brushed off suggestions that his neck problem had returned and insisted it was nothing more than a recurring dead arm caused by a combination of some normal bumps and bruises and bad luck.

But even if his discomfort was down to nothing more than a dead arm, he still does not look the player who kicked England to World Cup glory.

That is hardly surprising after such a long break but he has just four more league games before the November internationals to get back to the stellar levels he is used to.

His Newcastle coach Rob Andrew, a former England fly-half himself, believes Wilkinson is "virtually there", but his display on Sunday suggests otherwise.

Wilkinson halted Joe Worsley's run this time

An incisive break as early as the second minute showed what he is capable of, but his lack of match sharpness was revealed when he then threw out a horrible pass.

His normally reliable kicking from hand let him down when he missed touch a couple of times.

And although his distribution was reliable enough he was not causing the Wasps defence too many problems with the ball in hand.

A few times he tried to step his way through the congestion of the Wasps midfield but his footwork got him nowhere and in attempting to force a pass he conceded possession.

The one aspect of his game that was up to his usual standards was his place kicking.

He kicked four out of five and was striking the ball sweetly but his other notable strength, his defence, was below its normal standards.

Erinle, who turned in another blockbusting performance after coming on in the second half, brushed him aside on his way to his try, and even before the blow to his arm Wilkinson looked less inclined to get involved than before.