JOHNNO'S ROBOFLOPS

MARTIN JOHNSON was a pragmatic player, which was fine because he had exciting players around him.

But now he is coaching, he is still pragmatic. He is not looking to move forward - he is just looking to win ugly at all costs.

And that's not fine.

England must start looking for space rather than smashing into contact at every opportunity. Where is the skill and the nous in their game these days?

The game is all about quick ball, offloading, and keeping your opponent thinking, but England are in danger of becoming a team of 15 ROBOTS.

It's about getting the players' mindset right before they go out. Simon Shaw's talked about the 'robots' and I've been saying for a while that these gym monkeys just smash into rucks all day.

I would have picked a different set of players for these games rather than the Leicester Tigers-based selection Johnson has gone for.

Courtney Lawes should be given a go but I think Johnson will go with Louis Deacon.

A lot of the forwards he's looking at don't do anything week in, week out other than secure ball. That's problematic for England.

If Australia had a talented 20-year-old like Lawes, they would throw him straight in. They did it with Tim Horan and Jason Little in my day and then Matt Giteau more recently. They would give him a go and stick with him.

Johnson won't take that risk. He will go for the tried and tested players who are very close to robots.

It seems like anyone who voices an opinion against the coaching staff or the set-up gets booted out. Look what happened to Danny Cipriani.

Johnson's brought back Andy Goode into the squad, but what sort of message does that send to more naturally gifted fly-halves such as Ryan Lamb or Charlie Hodgson?

Dewi Morris

Goode is a limited player - he admits that himself. It seems like it's all about picking experience rather than picking on form. That's what really frustrates me.

Johnson's gone for the tried and tested, which is fine if England progress and we see some entertaining rugby, but I fear that won't be the case.

The oxygen for good teams is quick ball and that remains England's biggest problem.

You don't have to take contact every time it presents itself, you have to make the opposition think - and we're not doing that. We're so frightened to try something. We're too frightened of losing rather than trying to win the game by playing some attractive stuff. Offloading isn't risky as long as everyone is in tune with what is going on.

England have to get that in their mindset otherwise the pressure is going to come on to the entire coaching set-up, including Johnson, over the next month.

I believe there is already a tremendous amount of pressure, not only on Johnson because he is the man in charge, but also on his lieutenants.

The mindset of the coaches has to be about moving forward and giving these boys the ammunition so that they can go out and explode against Australia next weekend. If that doesn't happen soon, serious questions will be asked of this entire coaching set-up.

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