ARE ENGLAND IN CRISIS?England have turned to former captain Martin Johnson to steady a rocking ship, but the early signs are not promising, reports John O'Sullivan

MARTIN JOHNSON may have to translate the flinty-eyed intransigence with which he stared down adversity in his playing career to his current remit as England team manager. Today at Croke Park England will play the seventh game directly under Johnson’s management, a tenure that could best be described so far as fraught.

Two victories, over the Pacific Islands and Italy, haven’t quite fired the imagination of an English public, increasingly disenchanted by not alone the results but the manner of performance.

Johnson won’t care unduly because to do so would compromise what he is trying to achieve.

His appointment – officially July 1st, 2008 although the first games in which he took charge were the November Test matches – suggests a desire by the English RFU to replicate the Clive Woodward era that delivered a Grand Slam and the 2003 World Cup triumph.

The former Lions, England and Leicester Tigers captain is seen as the figure at the top of a coaching pyramid a role more akin to a soccer manager who oversees rather than directs the training ground drills.

Woodward pursued a similar policy, drawing together the varied strands of expertise required, in a network of subordinate coaches: Woodward was also an experienced club coach at that point whereas Johnson has none in that capacity.

In the current England regime Brian Smith (attack), John Wells (forwards), Mike Ford (defence) would have an input into team selection but Johnson is the ultimate arbiter of who plays. The latter was Woodward’s totem so it will be interesting to see if Johnson now subscribes to the same general principles.

Last November’s Test series was a pretty brutal introduction for Johnson, the low point of which was probably the 42-6 defeat against South Africa at Twickenham.

Woodward, who quit his role with England in September 2004 after a row over player availability with the English RFU, supported Johnson’s appointment but it did not prevent him from lamenting in the wake of the Springbok defeat: “It was a fairly accurate score line, so you have to take a step back and look behind the scenes – at the coaching and the management of the team.

“What’s happened since 2003? Where has the development of players gone? I never thought I’d see the day that any team would come to Twickenham and win by 40 points, or put on 40 points. These things don’t happen by chance, it wasn’t a freak result. We seem to be so far off every South African player; I couldn’t pick one England player I’d put in the South Africa team – that’s a scary thought. It was quite humiliating there to be frank.”

The defeat was the fifth anniversary to the day of England’s World Cup triumph in Australia.

Woodward was not alone. Dick Best, a hugely successful former England coach who only lost two of 17 internationals, pointed out: “We (England) are at least 18 months away from being a competitive team at this level. We are paying the price for two or three years of poor selections and, at present, these are the best players around.

“We have worked our way into a corner and we are stuck with Martin Johnson for at least two years. I was quite happy with former head coach Brian Ashton and would have liked Johnson to have been added as his team manager.”

The genesis for England’s current travails is being traced back to 2004 and incorporates the watches of Woodward, Andy Robinson, Brian Ashton and now Johnson: all four have enjoyed a rough ride at times as the chariot lurched about. England has won just 26 of 59 Test matches since claiming the William Webb Ellis trophy in 2003.

Robinson, who had been forwards’ coach under Woodward from 2000, succeeded the latter but nine victories in 22 matches over a two-year period precipitated his departure, criticism, some of which came from former acolytes, ringing in his ears.

Phil Larder had been defence coach for the Grand Slam and World Cup triumph and he worked alongside Robinson in the new set-up, before he was let go in April 2006, along with Joe Lydon (attack) and Dave Alred (kicking). Larder cited player power as the central issue that compromised Robinson’s ambition.

“He had a group of senior players he was listening to and were leading him rather than how Clive Woodward used to operate with his senior coaches. Andy said it was going to be player-led (at a meeting in August 2005) and the players were going to have far more influence.

“I objected straight away. I said if you go down this route with the present group of players we are going to have real problems. I said it was a group we had to inspire and get far, far more effort from them than we were getting at the moment.”

Larder’s misgivings were realised and within 14 months Robinson had been replaced by Brian Ashton, the latter appointed once again from within the national coaching framework – he had been introduced as attack coach earlier that year having previously been an assistant coach from 1998-2002 – on December 20th, 2006.

During Ashton’s two-year tenure England reached the 2007 World Cup final, but the credit for that achievement was apportioned in some quarters to a core of senior players who it is alleged righted a ship that listed alarmingly in the early throes of the tournament.

Lawrence Dallaglio claimed in his autobiography that England’s preparation left the players feeling like “a pub team”. He said of Ashton: “Head coach of the England team demands management skills that in my honest appraisal, Brian doesn’t have. I hope I’m not going to lose a friendship over what I say about Brian, a good coach who I believe was in the wrong role.”

Ashton, presided over and England team that won 12 of 22 matches in an 18-month period, during which time apart from making the World Cup final, the national side finished second in the 2008 Six Nations championship, their highest placing since winning a Grand Slam in 2003.

Former England outhalf and the voluble one-time director of rugby at Newcastle Rob Andrew had been appointed at the English RFU’s director of elite rugby in August 2006 and while kingmaker might be overstating his influence, he must have had an input into the firing and hiring of Robinson, Ashton and Johnson.

Andrew took charge of England’s two-Test tour to New Zealand last summer, the team losing both on the pitch and then having players embroiled in a nightclub/hotel episode that led to a police investigation.

Johnson’s appointment did little to assuage a public and media perception that England’s fallow period might extend a while longer as the new man took time to put his imprint on the national team and attendant structures. Results have borne out that assertion. The performance in victory over Italy at Twickenham earlier this month drew boos and whistles; the display against Wales at the Millennium stadium arguably a better representation of the team’s ability.

There have been several suggestions mooted as to why England have underachieved from too many foreigners in the Guinness Premiership to sundry issues about selection. Jason Leonard’s, England’s most capped player (114 Tests) in a career that spanned from 1990-2004 and included four Grand Slams and a World Cup, is adamant that England’s ambitions have been scuppered by a revolving door selection policy.

“There is an appreciable lack of continuity from that 2003 World Cup in terms of coaching structures. A couple of coaches had the players and not the structures while Martin Johnson has the structures but must now find the players and stick with them.

“You can’t simply point to one thing when it comes to analysing why England have failed. They got to the World Cup final in 2007 because of a determination, a belligerence but other than that it’s been pretty lean times. I don’t think there are too many foreign players in the Premiership. The clubs are aware of the perils of opening the cheque book too often rather than developing good underage programmes.

“There has been far too much chopping and changing of players since 2003. For four or five years prior to that World Cup we had a pretty settled side. We didn’t always win but there was a commitment to picking the best players and not discarding them after a couple of matches. Clive (Woodward) was aware of his best team and didn’t over react after one or two bad games.

“When we lost, we learned, got stronger, more resilient but we were given that opportunity to put things right.

“Matthew Tait is a classic example of a talented young player who was poorly handled. He could be on 50 caps now rather than a dozen. He had a difficult debut against Wales as a teenager but there were 14 others who also struggled, yet he disappeared and has only come back sporadically. Put it this way if he had been given an extended run he wouldn’t be making inexperienced decisions on a rugby pitch.

“Martin Johnson isn’t one to bow to pressure and that should serve him well. He has to decide on his best players, select them and allow a group to become the nucleus of the side.

“Players will always come and go but you have to have that core, persevere with those who you believe to be the best. You can not buy game time.

“The big prize is the 2011 World Cup. You have to give the players rope and see whether they hang themselves on the pitch or swing like Tarzan.”

Leonard points to today’s Ireland team, the core of which has been together for six or seven years, as a good blueprint for success. “Any team needs a strong backbone of experience and an understanding that only comes with playing together. I’d like to see a continual improvement from England over the rest of the Six Nations but that will only come with continuity of selection.

“You have to take the lumps and bumps of the odd disappointing result here and there. It’s a process that can’t always be accelerated.”

English rugby’s short- and medium-term future will be defined not alone by results but performances. Johnson must provide a discernible pathway to success, recognisable to players and supporters. He’ll need time but as the English RFU has shown patience is not a virtue to which they subscribe.

He’ll have to manage this while hugely reliant on others; players and coaches. Victory at Croke Park would provide him with both a little breathing space and a vindication, no matter how fleeting that’s he heading in the right direction.

There could be mitigation in defeat but that would represent a poor consolation.

All the while clock is ticking.