They won the World Cup because they had the best pack and the best half-backs

They won the World Cup because they had the best pack and the best half-backs. But that was then.”England looked vulnerable up front the moment Danny Grewcock called in sick with a dodgy Achilles tendon. Like Johnson before him, the Bath forward is a master of the dark arts ­ a strong-arm merchant, an enforcer, a thoroughly objectionable hunk of hired muscle. The mood our forwards were in, I don’t think they would have minded who they were up against.

With Martin Johnson sitting in a broadcasting booth looking like a Mafia hitman, rather than running around the pitch behaving like one, and with Jonny Wilkinson cocooned in a ball of cotton wool somewhere on Tyneside, hysterical overreaction may be the only sensible option.”If you ask me,” said Ronan O’Gara, the Munster outside-half who claimed 12 of his side’s points and gave the lie to his reputation as a fragile spirit unsuited to the demands of the pressure occasion, “England missed Wilkinson more than they did Johnson. Last autumn, he was proved right; this time, he sounded like Corporal Jones. The coach has so many awkward decisions to make, he might consider calling a referendum.Shaken to the core of his being by the comprehensive nature of Ireland’s supremacy ­ had the visitors won by 15 points, the Twickenham branch of the John Bull Society would have struggled to find grounds for complaint ­ Woodward responded with a “don’t panic” message of the kind regularly issued during the World Cup. There is no guarantee that Matt Dawson, a curate’s egg in human form, will hold off the fierce challenge of Andy Gomarsall at scrum-half; it is by no means certain that the Gloucester props, Trevor Woodman and Phil Vickery, will continue in tandem.

Iain Balshaw and Ben Cohen, two underperforming backs, are also in the stocks, en route to the gallows.In terms of potential fall-out, that is not nearly the end of it. Woodward’s much-debated “back four” strategy has about as much future as a Stalinist in a Texas oilfield, and it will be a seismic shock if Jason Robinson reappears in the outside centre position. As a result, Steve Thompson, Steve Borthwick, Ben Kay and Joe Worsley will be mighty fortunate to retain their starting places for the game against Wales on Saturday week. The Irish, profoundly unimpressed by their opponents’ skin-tight fashion-wear, did not want them anyway.Woodward has suffered worse beatings at international level, not least the gruesome 76-0 hiding in Brisbane six years ago, which, compared with this, was almost a victory. The statistics sheet – a cold, charmless document that Clive Woodward must yearn to feed into the nearest shredding machine – tells the tale of this match: in surrendering an unbeaten single-venue record of unprecedented proportions, England were obliterated at the line-out, marmalised in the tackle and smithereened in the battle for possession. But it is a seriously long time since an England side as close to full strength as this one found themselves bossed around up front to such a surprising ­ nay, staggering ­ degree.