Johnson needs to bring back the T-Cup

The most depressing thing about England’s performance at Twickenham yesterday was just how familiar it seemed. I just felt we’d been there before.

Once again the team had hung in there with a top tier side, momentarily matched them and even suggested they could take the game by the scruff of the neck, only to then run out of steam and let the opposition ease to victory.

For the past five years this has been an all-too-typical experience for the England team and its followers.

I’m not sure exactly what I expected under Martin Johnson and his new regime.

I was aware that, great player and captain though he was, he wouldn’t automatically be able to revolutionise the England 15 overnight and, although there were a couple of exciting youngsters coming through, he hadn’t suddenly been blessed with a higher calibre of player.

I guess it was the mentality where I expected Johnson’s influence to come to the fore, and I don’t mean the all-out attacking flair exhibited against the Pacific Islands, which was never going to be replicated against the top sides.

What I was looking was for players to be something that Stuart Barnes referred to in his match commentary as ‘match smart’.

The way I read this was the simple decision making that can win or lose, or - at least - certainly turn, test matches.

Many of the top test sides line-up with a similar standard of players in terms of athleticism and basic rugby ability.

But what separates the very best from the rest is that in the furious atmosphere of a rugby international, where you have only split seconds to make a choice, they regularly make the same decision they would have made if they were given minutes to weigh up the situation.

Yesterday England made a host of stupid decisions, rashly diving into a ruck or playing the ball on the floor, and were made to pay by the number of kickable penalties they conceded.

At times in attack too, the break was made or the off-load successful only for the move to break down, not so much because the next move was the wrong move, but because the decision took too long.

Since the 2003 World Cup England seem to have lost that impeccable habit for making the right decision that marked them out as true champions.

It could purely be put down to experience but I feel it is a more innate decision-making ability.
How else do you explain players such as the Aussie scrum half Luke Burgess (or, if you remember his French counterpart Morgan Parra who shone against England in the Six Nations) who seem born to test rugby and seem immediately comfortable making decisions at that level?

For me, two players of the World Cup generation summed up what England referred to as ‘T-Cup’, short for total control under pressure, as their razor-sharp thinking games were never put off stride even in the most intense situations.

The first - it pains me a little to admit as I’m not a fan of his post-career quiz-panellist/ballroom dancer/chef/anything-to-get-on-TV reincarnation - was Matt Dawson, who was not the most physically or technically gifted scrum-half but played the game a phase or two ahead of everyone else and was rarely ruffled in any circumstances.

The other was Will Greenwood, who just seemed to get better as the stakes increased and was a hugely underrated midfield creator.

Of course these guys were playing behind a dominant pack, Johnson desperately needs to work out how to get the England eight’s bite back, but even when they were on the back foot their thought process remained clear and calculated.

Against Australia England’s young side was shown up simply for its inability to make decisions and lack of direction when they were up against it, particularly with ball in hand.

Danny Cipriani showed in brief flashes what a brilliant creative force he can be and two searing breaks demonstrated it is worth enduring his slightly wayward goalkicking.

But he plays more off instinct than intelligence and I really feel this England side will struggle to move forward until at least two leader figures who keep their heads at all times emerge and act as rallying posts for others in hours of need.

Johnson was one of those figures as a player but the question is, can he transmit this mentality to his players, or is it something they are just born with?