Johnson seeking a big upturn in fortunes

10:21am Monday 21st April 2008

NEW England team manager Martin Johnson has admitted he will live or die by results on the pitch.

The 38-year-old, who led the nation to World Cup glory as captain in 2003, has embarked on a three-year mission to restore his side to the international game's pinnacle.

However, having seen predecessor Brian Ashton lose his job despite inspiring an astonishing recovery to take England to last year's final, he knows what happens on the pitch will determine his own future.

Johnson told BBC 5 Live's Sportsweek: There is no guarantee in anything. You have got to do a job. You are in the most responsible job in English rugby and you have got to produce.

Sport is about winning and losing and you want to win.

There is an expectation on this England team at any time to be successful, and that has only got bigger in the last 20 years since I have been around in the senior game.

That's a good thing, we should have an expectation to do well and dealing with that as a coach, a manager and a player is a big part of the whole job.'' Ashton's fate served as a warning of how quickly things can turn in top level sport, but Johnson insists he had to come with the pressure of having to perform throughout his distinguished playing career.

He said: When you play, you are picked game by game. As a captain, I didn't have a three-year mandate to be captain.

If I wasn't playing well, not only would I be dropped for the next game, they might have taken me off during that game.

I have been out of the game for two years and it has been very nice.

But if you want to get back involved, particularly at this level or even in the Premiership, it is pressure, that's what it is about.

It is about results. People want to see the English team win games, of course we do, we all do.'' However, Johnson admits he is relishing the challenge of trying to reproduce his famed brand of leadership off the pitch.

He said: We need to go out and play as well as we can and perform.

Often, you can go out against some of the teams we are playing against and play well and still lose.

If we take care of performance, you hope results will take care of themselves and you will win.

But we have just seen a World Cup where the team (New Zealand) that was acknowledged as the best in the world having played some of the best rugby we have probably ever seen in international rugby over the last few years, lost in the quarter-final.

That's the nature of it, that's why it is exciting and good fun.

To win something and be successful is difficult, but it gives you a huge amount of satisfaction.

Actually striving to be good and trying to win those things is part of it and part of the fun.'' Johnson is yet to name his coaching staff and refused to be drawn on the identities of the men he hopes to recruit.

But he cannot wait to start his job in earnest after revealing he could not afford to allow the opportunity to pass him by when the RFU's director of elite rugby, Rob Andrew, came calling.

He said: Sometimes these opportunities come up in your life.

If you had said to me a year ago, Are you thinking about getting involved back with the game?', the truthful answer was Yes'.

I did have the enthusiasm and was thinking about where and when and how I would do it.

Did I think it would be this job? No, I didn't, of course I didn't.

But sometimes these things happen and opportunities come your way.

When I thought about it, I didn't want to be sitting down in 10 years' time, five years' time even, thinking, If only'.

It's a fantastic opportunity, it is a great time to be involved in the game, and particularly with the England team.''

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