"The best front jumper in the world game"

IN 1993, Rugby World magazine put Marlin Johnson and Martin Bayfield on their front cover. The British publication was providing a public service. They were preparing the world for the arrival of a second row partnership that was going to form the core of the English pack into the next century.

Bayfield at 6ft 10in and Johnson at 6ft 7in were megasaurs. Both were on the Lions tour to New Zealand that year. Both weighed around 18 stone. Both had won only 13 caps between them, Bayfield 12 and Johnson one. Both were already being compared to the outstanding partnership of Wade Dooley and Paul Ackford. Expert opinion judged the two as potentially the finest England had unearthed in the last 40 years.

Three years on and Johnson is on his own, back on the cover of the same magazine. "Magic Johnson" they are now declaring. Bayfield, dropped for Simon Shaw and now struggling for fitness, has been overshadowed by the younger Leicester second row, the one they are calling the best front jumper in the world.

"He's world class in every department," says former Irish line out specialist Neil Francis. "He has exceptional upper body strength. He's taken over from Richards in the Leicester pack. A lot of rolling mauls are instigated by him and if he hasn't instigated them, his momentum will determine the pace. He's also a very intelligent player."

Johnson is the best in a tough business. He is at the heart of the English side. He mines away at the coal face in the rucks and mauls and most critically, in the line outs. Intrinsically, his game is a hard one even by rugby standards. No place for the squeamish. No place for the pacifist. The line out, players will tell you, is a jungle.

"He normally demands a lot of space," says Francis. "Look across the line out and there's two metres. The hooker just throws the ball down their line, not the line out. Sometimes it looks as if it's crooked in. You haven't a ghost of a chance of getting there. You have to try and close the space, mess the blockers, mess him.

Messing with a behemoth is not easy. Johnson is one of the most messed with players in the game simply because he is so vital a part of England's ball winning team. Few succeed in upsetting the Johnson, particularly with a vigilant referee on duty.

Having spent 18 months in the 1990-91 season playing in New Zealand for College Old Boys and Kings Country, Johnson's formative years could hardly have provided him with a better grounding. From an early age, he has learned how to deal with messing.

Last December he was capably dealing with it against Argentina in Twickenham. While the panther like elegance of Jeremy Guscott was stylishly taking him over the line with England 15-18 down, Johnson, dispensing summary justice, was taking out a Puma. No try. Penalty to Argentina.

"That was a bad few minutes," said Johnson. "Imagine the headline. The punch that cost a Test."

Johnson's face was saved. England won a line out 20 metres from the Argentinian line. Hooker Richard Cockerill threw the ball to their banker and Jason Leonard went over.

"There's no harm in a lock looking after himself, but you've got to be a little more subtle these days with all the videos, touch judges and citings," says a chillingly frank Bill Beaumont.

"Martin is the best front jumper in the world game. Now is the time for him to start getting the ball in his hands more in attack when the modern game demands that the front five are ballhandlers."

During Johnson's southern hemisphere experience, he also represented New Zealand Colts against a touring Australian team. The New Zealand side included All Blacks Va'aiga Tuigamala, John Timu and Blair Larsen. On returning home, the English under 21 side provided the foothold for a career hike that has not yet looked like faltering.

Johnson's break came in the 1992-93 season when he was expecting to play for England A against France A at Leicester. Instead, he was ushered down the M1 to Twickenham, where Dooley had pulled out of the opening Five Nations Championship match with an injured thigh.

Dooley came back to play in the remaining games, which resulted in defeat at the hands of both Wales (10-9) and Ireland (17-3), England's worst season of the 1990s.

"On balance, I probably regret not persisting with Martin Johnson that winter," said England's then manager Geoff Cooke.

In 1993, Johnson made a significantly longer trip to deputise for Dooley on the Lions tour. He had to travel from Canada to Christchurch when Dooley had a family bereavement and was forced to return home.

Cooke, the manager, resisted the temptation to slip Johnson in straight away, but he went on to make an impact when selected as Bayfield's partner in the second Test in Wellington. Lording over the line outs and making a significant impact, Johnson stayed in the side for the losing decider in Auckland.

But to believe in the image and to buckle under the weight of Johnson's reputation is to go some distance along the road towards accepting that he is invincible. Today, Brian Ashton and his team are hardly likely to court such pessimism. They will have watched Leicester's European Cup final against Brive two weeks ago and derived some comfort.

Kiwi Grant Ross jumped at number two against Johnson and insured that his big day was as much a personal as a collective disappointment. At 6ft 8in, Ross at least equalled Johnson for height. But like most French sides, Brive were also tough and streetwise at close quarters. They held down, blocked and barged Johnson, Malt Poole and Richards all of whom struggled vainly for line out possession. It was a lesson bereft of niceties, but shrewdly conceived and robustly carried out. Brive successfully messed.

"We found it very hard to attack without the ball," said Leicester coach Bob Dwyer afterwards.

It was a surprise that Richards, the captain, did not take remedial action against Brive's illegalities and marshal his lads into taking appropriate counter measures.

When Leinster played against Leicester in the European Cup this season, Johnson was, again out of sorts.

"He didn't make a single line out ball. It was all Matt Poole. He missed five and it didn't seem to go very well for him. He doesn't seem to have any weaknesses but occasionally, he still acts like a young man. If things aren't going right for him he can get moany and whingey," said a Leinster player.

IT'S improbable that England will freeze as fatally as Leicester did and it is unlikely, too, that Johnson will be negated so effectively, even if today Ireland decide to crudely go about their business in the line outs.

"He can jump," says Francis. "He has natural ability. But it's all about systems. Johnson has the same system at Leicester as England would have. They like mauling from number two because it ties people to the touchline without cutting out space for the midfield runners. They like to leave that space.

A system means that Johnson will have his minders. They know that under normal circumstances he is a banker in the line out.

"Whatever the praise or criticism, the prime requirement for hooker and lock at the line out is winning your own ball - no excuses from either bloke. Near either goal line we are talking about five or seven points either way. We become equally as important as the goal kicker then," says Johnson.

He calls himself the most boring person in rugby and as one of the biggest post professional money earners in the game, he has also kept on his job as a banker. Not yet 27 and with 27 caps, he is fast approaching Dooley's 55 cap record of being England's most capped second row, eight caps less than Irish record holder Willie, John McBride, who has won 63 at second row. Dooley, though, went on playing until he was 35.

"He'll have 80 caps before he's finished. He's well put together, doesn't get injured. It's another one of his strengths," adds Francis. Just another one.