Martin Johnson and England enjoy improved Six Nations outlook
After a joyless autumn that was like some sort of puritanical test of the paying public's will power, Martin Johnson will announce on Wednesday the England elite squad for the next trial in the devil's playground, the Six Nations. It is hardly likely that the manager, more the Lord Protector now, will have discovered jollity since November, or that Twickenham, in a pang of guilt, will have reduced admission charges for February and March. But there is always the consolation of imagining that it is simply impossible ever again to have less value for money.
Such were the injuries in the autumn that Johnson could have survived three hidings, but he emerged with his reputation damaged after a win over Argentina and defeats by Australia and New Zealand because of a lack of imagination in selection and strategy.
England were hobbled by caution. One try, by Matt Banahan, and a string of penalties and drop goals by Jonny Wilkinson kept jeers closer to the crowd's lips than "Swing low ..."
Things look brighter now, if only because in the one position that still offers a little more freedom on the field, England are spoilt for choice. Ben Foden makes mistakes under the high ball – as in sometimes he misses it completely – but the Northampton full-back remains more faithful to his instinct to counterattack than to the mantra of playing safe and kicking. For that alone he deserves a start.
But will he be given one ahead of Delon Armitage, back from injury and back into his silky stride at London Irish? Armitage was a rarity, a selection gamble that paid off for Johnson, in the autumn of 2008, and the manager may want to protect his protege by keeping him in the 15 shirt, even if another exciting possibility presents itself.
Armitage has experience at outside-centre with his club and England badly need some midfield variety. Mike Tindall could always organise a defence well but Armitage might just loosen the grip on the blinkers, or at least convert some of England's lateral running into forward motion.
The most important player in the England three-quarter line may be the person inside either Armitage or, if a more conventional selection policy is pursued, Dan Hipkiss. Riki Flutey has hardly played this season, thanks to a shoulder injury, but coaches are always looking for fresh players in the Six Nations camps that will dot the continent until early spring. As he showed on the Lions tour last year, with his knee, Flutey is resolute when it comes to recovering against the odds.
Anthony Allen would, like Hipkiss at 13, present a dependable alternative at 12, and would bring familiarity to an area where England have often played like strangers. Allen has settled into an efficient working relationship with Hipkiss at Leicester.
But how about trying Jonny Wilkinson at 12? It has been put forward as a possibility many times as doubts about Wilkinson's management of a game have surfaced. He works best under orders, not as a barker of them. It still seems slightly strange, all these years down the line, that he never turned out to be officer material. Instead he is Jonny, a foot soldier.
England went through the autumn with Ugo Monye or Mark Cueto at full-back, the one wincingly bad and the other most dependable. Putting Foden at the rear would release both back to their natural habitat on the wings, where presumably they would be first choice, at the expense of Banahan.
Is there no place in the squad for a fourth winger – for David Strettle, say, slightly out of sorts at the moment but a player who can create something out of little? And no space for Mathew Tait, finally spared from wandering up and down in limbo, never landing on a position?
If Wilkinson shuffles along one to inside-centre that opens up the fly-half position for Toby Flood: the apprentice at Newcastle now the Leicester play-maker, telling Jonny what to do. That would test Jonny's quantum Zen, and he would no doubt pass with the utmost dignity, accepting the rationale with one of those sentences of his that never quite reaches a full stop.
And the back-up to Flood? There's always Jonny, and presumably Andy Goode's number remains etched into Johnson's mobile. If England need to nurture somebody for the future, they might have to look at Shane Geraghty, although by the way he has played since the autumn it seems that England duty may do him more harm than good.
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