We are all busy talking grand slams, but in many ways yesterday was the last play of Martin Johnson’s hand before the World Cup. And he laid down his cards with familiar safety; he selected conservatively. He knows his side, but what we may not discover is whether or not it can be improved.
If there is one sure-fire way to ensure that Johnson makes no drastic changes, it is to have the media start suggesting them. We say one thing, he digs his heel in and does the other.
“The midfield,” we cried, “it ain’t working.” And so the team Johnson fielded yesterday included the same midfield it had for the previous three games. Shontayne Hape and Mike Tindall. Yesterday was the day for them to silence the doubters and to justify the faith their manager has placed in them.
Yesterday could also have been the day to try an alternative. A Jonny Wilkinson-Toby Flood 10-12 axis was the obvious experiment. But we never saw the experiment because Johnson never tried it. And neither did Hape and Tindall end the debate.
The problem now is that Johnson has run out of time. Saturday, grand slam day, is no day to try something new. Thereafter we are into World Cup countdown. No more big games before New Zealand. The message from the manager appears to be: this is it, this is my team, end of debate.
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At best this is loyalty, at worst, belligerence. Strength and weakness, forte and limitation.
A year ago there were rumblings in the media that Johnson needed to change his coaching staff. This newspaper was certainly party to the debate. But Johnson ignored it; he either rose above it or he buried his head in the sand beneath it. Either way, he was rewarded. No one questions the coaches now.
His strength — his loyalty — has also been repaid by the players. Johnson’s hallmark: no kneejerk reactions to poor performances, no rotating door policy, a settled squad grows as one. The dividends are clear: we are now in grand slam week.
But his forte can be a limitation, too. We saw that last year when his allegiance to Delon Armitage and Ugo Monye kept Ben Foden and Chris Ashton out in the cold.
And you wonder now. Everything that happens in the England attack comes through Ben Youngs and Toby Flood. With every game he plays for England, Youngs seems to grow from link-man to playmaker and decision-maker.
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One of the prime reasons that Flood has looked increasingly a player of international class this season is because when he finds those holes in defences, it is invariably his scrum half who has already sniffed them out and taken him there.
But apart from the half backs, who is contributing? It is Youngs and Flood who call the shots. They offload in the face of the enemy; they draw the defence so close they open space. Yesterday Hape and Tindall were playing a different game — they offload so early sometimes, they allow the opposition defence to drift.
Unless they batter holes with sheer physicality, and none appeared for them yesterday, they create links in attack rather than holes in defence.
Yet when it became clear yesterday that Scotland’s defiance was deep-set and that England were struggling for inspiration, it was at No 9 that Johnson chose to find the answer. To send Danny Care on for Youngs was a baffling decision.
Youngs was once again the heartbeat of England’s attacking game. Care, unfortunately, is an ambitious young man whose career happens to have hit a peak at the same time as one of the best scrum halves in the world.
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Since October the success of this England team has been so marked that it has been easy to forget the basic truth, that Johnson is totally new to management. Yesterday was like a tap-on-the-shoulder reminder. Good decisions, managerial wisdom — they are forged in the heat of competition. Sir Clive Woodward did not get it right first time, either.
What is clear is that Johnson, the manager, is a work in progress, just as his team are. As he continues his personal journey, he embodies certain clear qualities. But loyalty is a quality, until loyalty becomes inflexibility.