England's Six Nations campaign has been a confusing affair, perhaps unsurprisingly given that Martin Johnson has had two years to grapple and grimace his players into what is now an unusually confusing England team. Mainly England are confusing because of the approach they take to not really being that good. Other not-really-that-good teams may ask themselves questions like, can we get some better players? Or improve the ones we've got?
England take a different view. They worry instead about methodology. They seem convinced the real problem here is simply the manner in which they're not-really-that-good. It's as though this is simply a mild disjunction or a temporary misunderstanding that can be glossed over or jiggled into place. So much so that the England team now resemble a drunk man in a disco who remains convinced that if he could just douse himself in exactly the right strain of deodorant, or dance more energetically, or smoke in a really cool way then the slim, fashionable 21-year‑old women he keeps standing near will suddenly begin to find him attractive.
England started the season with a lot of talk about playing "instinctive" rugby. This sounded exciting. Before long it was being quietly amended to "fast and physical" rugby (as opposed to, say, slow and ethereal, folksy, tambourine rattling rugby). This week things have developed further, without becoming much clearer. Jonny Wilkinson has promised to "see more of the field". Johnson has argued: "You have to play the game in front of you." And yesterday Danny Care promised England would deliver "something special" today against Scotland. But what could it be?
Seasoned observers will recognise that this is simply a riff on a traditional English confusion. Should they (a) seek the comforts of the steaming, frothing, tottering mass cuddle that rotates very slowly until finally the referee peeps his whistle and points crossly at something; or (b) have a go at a frenetically "expansive" romp involving the triple miss-pass reverse dummy wang out to a lithe, handsome man who will run furiously until he's jounced into touch and then get up looking sad and small?
The insistence that this is the root of the problem, that all it's going to take is some tactical tweak and suddenly England will "catch fire" and the world will kneel before them, may be interpreted by some as arrogance. Or perhaps as a combination of enduring on-field mediocrity and an unshakable superiority complex.
Others blame Johnson, but this is unfair. Johnson wasn't appointed for his tactical coherence. He was appointed purely for his Johnno-ness, a deeply seductive quality of pure personality that was supposed to overwhelm and suffocate the confusion over methodologies and philosophies and tight-shirted All Black-envy.
At first there was great hope for Johnno-ness, which is a tearful, largely inarticulate quality, brimful with constipated reverence. For a while it was common to avoid referring to the England coach specifically. Instead people talked about "a man like Martin Johnson" or "the Martin Johnsons of this world" as though to gaze on his Johnno-ness directly would taint him or dilute his beetle-browed majesty.
Johnno-ness is still a potent creed. You'd still like Johnno to stand near you at a wedding, perhaps wearing a kilt or some kind of guardsman's uniform, burdening you with his massive, weighty, unarguable authenticity. But, amazingly, Johnno-ness doesn't seem to have been enough on its own. The old tensions are unresolved, the team to play Scotland a fudge of big heavy grappling men and light, skipping, prancing men with expansive, progressive, forward-thinking spiky hairstyles. Even Johnno looks uncomfortable now, trapped inside his shirt collar like a captive Allosaurus chewing its bars and constantly on the verge of making a "baaaargh!" noise.
Some have even suggested the limits of Johnno-ness may have been reached, that maybe Pilsner-strength personality and an ability to make grown men well up and want to beat someone with an umbrella for failing to appear sufficiently pious isn't enough on its own. They're wrong. Johnno‑ness is still England's best bet. At least it makes a kind of tearful sense.
