Just how does one become an Englishman?

Yesterday signalled the official start of Martin Johnson’s hands on involvement in England rugby as he named his first senior squad.

Johnson’s first international is not until November 8 and he will be given more ‘contact time’ with the players than ever before thanks to the new elite squad system that compensates clubs for the time players spend training with the national set up.

But even for a man with Johnson’s fearlessness and leadership skills, he faces a daunting challenge to turn a squad of players that was, frankly, second rate on their recent summer tour to New Zealand into a team of world beaters capable of challenging the giants of the Southern Hemisphere.

Johnson has made a few changes in personnel but the players, certainly in terms of the talent at his disposal, are a similar group to the one that fared so dismally in Auckland and Christchurch.

Yes we may, in a few months, see the return of the precociously talented Wasps fly half Danny Cipriani, but the youngster is a) currently injured and b) human.

What if he doesn’t become the next Dan Carter or he is hit by a Jonny Wilkinson style run of injuries?

One of the new faces selected by Johnson is Cipriani’s Wasps teammate Riki Flutey who has been superb at club level at taking the pressure of the 20-year-old and will no doubt be asked to fill a similar role for his adopted country.

I say ‘adopted country’ but it was more a case of England adopting Flutey than the other way round.

The New Zealander spent several years with Wellington and played for the All Blacks’ Under 19 and Maori sides before moving to these shores at the age of 24.

Now 28, he has shone at London Irish and Wasps in recent seasons, principally as an inside centre with his sharp attacking brain and solid offence.

The Guinness Premiership players’ player of the year last season doesn’t actually qualify for England on residency grounds until September but already he finds himself answering Johnson’s SOS.

There is no doubt Flutey deserves his place in the squad in terms of his performance but the lack of the debate we usually hear whenever a player of dubious patriotic credentials is asked to don our national jersey reflected a team in crisis.

Lesley ‘the volcano’ Vainikolo may have been a spectacular failure with his dormant performances on the wing during this year’s Six Nations, but any issued over his qualifications before the tournament were swept under the carpet by his phenomenal try scoring record in Rugby League and the prospect of him repeating it in a different code.

Now Vainikolo has been discarded and is seen an example of why we shouldn’t let players from other countries represent the national side.

It seems if you’re good enough, you’re British enough and not just in rugby too.

For many Kevin Pietersen was only truly accepted as an Englishman after his breathtaking 158 at the Oval in 2005 which secured the Ashes urn and sparked national celebration.

But Pietersen was, in a way, different, he rejected South Africa as a young cricketer on moral grounds over racial quotas and set up home in England.

A man of Pietersen’s self-belief must surely have known, even before he proved it to us, that he was good enough to play for South Africa if he wanted to. The fact is England became his first choice.

The same can be said of Basil D’Oliveira, a coloured player who fled South African apartheid in the 1960s to star as an all-rounder for England.

The difference with Flutey is New Zealand rejected him, he felt he wasn’t good enough to make the grade and traded in his international ambitions for a life on foreign shores.

If a young English inside centre, like Olly Barkley for example, had stood up and proved themselves a fantastic talent on the New Zealand tour would we be so willing to accept Flutey in his place?

What sort of message are we sending to our younger players when we pick players who are only trying their hand with England because they weren’t good enough to represent the country of their birth?