Simon Barnes, writing in The Times, is glad that he can now stop clamouring for Martin Johnson to lose his job as England manager.
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Martin Johnson has turned his England reign around
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"I can't tell you what a relief it is not to be writing a Johnson-must-go piece. England beat Scotland at Twickenham on Saturday, leaving the victors amazingly in second place in the final RBS Six Nations Championship table, a strange and deeply unexpected achievement. And it means that Martin Johnson stays on as England team manager.
"Triumph might be overstating it just a trifle, but all the same, after five horrendous defeats in six games, to finish the season with a couple of wins and a few pretty tries is not nothing. But more importantly, it means that nobody needs to be blamed for anything. That lets me off the job of saying bad things about Johnson, and I'm very relieved.
"Not because I know him. Rather, because I don't. Nearest I got to meeting him outside a press conference was to nod to him when coincidence found us at adjacent tables in Brisbane. He was still a player then - playing, as it happens, with his baby daughter, Molly, lifting her up high and then bringing her down as if he had just won her in a lineout. Never showed that side of himself to opponents.
"But he has looked terribly vulnerable since he took on the England job. That has been hard to deal with. All our experience of the man is of the exact opposite. We know him as a player, as the never-a-backward-step man who took England to the World Cup."
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