Former England international Paul Ackford offers an insight into the machinations of the England management team in a piece for the Daily Telegraph.
"Each Wednesday of the season so far, Johnson, Rob Andrew, the RFU's director of elite rugby, and an assortment of medical and fitness advisers have participated in a conference call to monitor England's ill and injured. And in each week of the season to date Cipriani could have been moved up because one or more of Johnson's elite squad was on the treatment table. The only way Johnson cannot switch players between squads is if all his senior men report fit in the immediate build-up to England's first international against the Pacific Islands. Given that, on average, a fifth of the national squad are crocked at any one time, that is not going to happen.
"The implications of this are wide-ranging. It means that in-form players like Bath's Nick Abendanon and Harlequins' David Strettle, both in the Saxons squad, could come under consideration for positions for which their senior colleagues have yet to stake a claim. It also means that, were Iain Balshaw to continue scoring a hat-trick of tries in the remaining fixtures leading into the autumn series, he, too, could play a part, even though he features in neither of England's two squads at present."
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