Donacld McRae catches up with England manager Martin Johnson ahead of their summer tour to Argentina in The Guardian.
"Martin Johnson takes a big bite out of a small biscuit as he considers the stark difference between being a legendary rugby player and an inexperienced team manager. "I'm clearly still learning," he says, crunching thoughtfully, "because it's a new role for me. It's also pretty interesting to look at the contrast because it tells you a lot about the particular challenge a manager confronts."
"In an otherwise empty boardroom at Twickenham Johnson demolishes his last mouthful and pushes aside the Rugby Football Union's plate. "When I played you could simply feel what was happening in a game," he remembers with a suddenly concentrated gaze. "You could feel if their intensity was dropping. And then that great feeling comes when you know you've got them, when you know you've broken them."
"His eyes glitter at the memory of the deadly instinct that surged through him as a player. Yet Johnson is such an intelligent and pragmatic man that he reverts quickly to the more ambivalent art of management. "It's not that simple in the grandstands," he says ruefully. "In one of my first games as England manager, against Australia last November, I thought I could see what they were feeling on the pitch. At half-time I said, 'Can you feel it? Can you feel how they've lessened their intensity?' I thought we'd reached a point where we could impose ourselves."
"At half-time England trailed Australia by a point but in the end they were beaten comprehensively – with that 28–14 defeat being followed by a record 42–6 loss to South Africa. Had his players not felt the same when he told them they were on the verge of winning their battle against Australia? "They said they shared my view but sometimes are they just saying that because it's the thing to say? As a player it's more instinctive. You're eye-to-eye to with the opposition and you can feel whether they're weakening. I'm still learning to do that as a manager but, ultimately, you make your decisions and you have to trust your players."
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