Martin Johnson's instincts as a dominant forward, of always protecting the fly-half, were unimpaired by eight years of retirement during Wednesday's press conference in a red-rose-carpeted Twickenham suite when he officially announced his resignation as England's team manager. Offering himself up as a human shield for his boss Rob Andrew, Johnson persistently wrestled the ball from critical questioners and denied them the chance to flatten the Rugby Football Union's rugby operations director and force Andrew to share the 2003 World Cup-winning captain's fate. If England's players had, in Johnson's well-worn phrase, "executed their skills under pressure" with similar defiant poise, it would never have come to this.

In 2003, when England had held on against the All Blacks in Wellington despite being reduced to 13 men and recorded their first victory in New Zealand for 30 years, Johnson was asked afterwards what was going through his head as he packed down, six v eight. "My spine," he said. That deadpan quality was much in evidence as he explained this move. "The decision whether to jump in for another four years was no."

It was a conclusion, Johnson said, not arrived at lightly but it was "the right call" – in his best interests as well as for the good of the England team and English rugby. He defended the progress the team had made over the past year, repeating twice that they had won 10 of the past 13 games, and refusing to blame the poor discipline of some of his players for undermining the World Cup campaign. "I don't think it affected them that much," he said.

Only once did Johnson's formidable beetle brow furrow in its imitation of a short stack of pancakes on an American breakfast plate and that was when he was asked if he was resigning because of his own limitations. Perhaps hoping for a quote to rank alongside Kevin Keegan's when he gave up the manager's job of the England football team – "I was just a little bit short at this level" – Johnson would not comply. "It was a considered, thoughtful reaction." Anyone seeking elaboration was given the same short shrift.

All the while Andrew looked on, dealing with questions he thought impertinent with a grin at his own flippancy. "I am absolutely not considering resigning," he said at the start, after trying to explain the demarcation lines between his unit and Johnson's, employing the lofty if rare "beneath my paygrade" defence.

Andrew's team-mates used to call him "Squeaky" because of his hygienic public image and his utterances here were designed to show he had clean hands. The RFU's structural problems were not an issue, he claimed, and those who thought so betrayed their ignorance of how reporting lines work in a multi-million pound business.

Part of the reason that nothing sticks to Twickenham's Teflon man is his ability to bamboozle an audience with business speak and play up his position above the fray. Johnson backed him all the way, adamant that he had not been subjected to interference and that he had beenboth isolated and insulated from the governing body's politics. "I've been able to do the job on my terms" Johnson maintained. "I had plenty of support," he concluded and proceeded with utmost chivalry to repay Andrew in kind.