Slinking away was never an option for Martin Johnson as he captained England to World Cup glory in Australia in 2003.
Eight years on from returning in triumph Johnson, then on-field enforcer but now England team manager, decided that hiding was the best course for him and his sorry bunch of players on arrival at Heathrow from New Zealand.
When flight NZ 002 landed at 10.39am on Tuesday the coach ordered by Johnson to whisk away the squad waited on the tarmac. As Lewis Moody and company ducked off the plane and scarpered for the side exit, behind them was a farcical and dispiriting sojourn that will linger in the memory for all the wrong reasons.
"Highlights" included a dwarf-throwing contest in a Queenstown nightclub, the reprimand for James Haskell, Dylan Hartley and Chris Ashton over the alleged baiting of a hotel maid in Dunedin, Johnson admitting two of his coaching staff illegally switched the ball in the group match with Romania and an inflexible gameplan that gives rise to as many doubts over Johnson's playing strategy as his man-management skills.
What further trauma Johnson imagined awaited Moody and his band beyond the tax-free perfume and chocolates at the arrival gate of Terminal One is unclear. By allowing his players to swerve out Johnson added further embarrassment to the team and his regime. Even the police were bemused, one saying: "I walked through with the winning team in 2003 and it was euphoric. How the mighty have fallen in eight years."
What a fall it has been. Not a single England rugby fan was in evidence at the gate. No one, it seemed, was sufficiently moved to turn up and demand explanations from the team. If they had emerged, all that would have greeted them would have been two camera crews, a handful of press and a surprised France supporter who asked: "Are the England players really not coming through?"
While Johnson decides whether he wants to carry on as manager – a decision to be taken by Rob Andrew for a Rugby Football Union in similar disarray – for some players the fallout from their misdemeanours continues.
Following Manu Tuilagi's decision to jump off a ferry in Auckland harbour on Sunday he will be warned by Leicester, his club, regarding his future conduct. The 20-year-old was given a formal warning for disorderly behaviour by New Zealand police. After the player was fined £3,000 by the RFU, Leicester's chief operating officer, Simon Cohen, told the Leicester Mercury: "As a club we are very mindful of the image of the game and the effect our players' actions have on our fans and sponsors. We will have a chat with Manu."
In a surely futile hope Cohen added: "It would be a shame if anyone remembers Manu Tuilagi's time in New Zealand for anything other than what happened on the pitch."
Moody, as the England captain, also failed to offer the best example by apparently wearing a branded mouthguard in the defeat by France. He faces a fine of around £4,800 if found guilty (Tuilagi was ordered to pay the same amount by the International Rugby Board for the same offence in England's first two games).
If Johnson decides against continuing, then his three-year reign will have been book-ended by no‑shows. The first came when he did not travel for the summer tour of New Zealand in 2008 due to his wife being pregnant, after he had chosen his inaugural squad. The second would have come at Heathrow, in a nearly deserted terminal, where Johnson, so scary and impressive as a player, decided that to tiptoe away was the best way forward.
