Johnson's men here in full metal jacket mode

SIDELINE CUT:HATS OFF to Martin Johnson. Not that the big Englishman is all that bothered with ceremony, if memory serves. When President McAleese's aides are preparing for her visit to Lansdowne Road this afternoon, they ought to consider bringing a sniffer-dog with them to locate the Englishmen, who are quite likely to be found queuing at the hot dog stand when it comes to the customary handshakes and anthems.

Johnson’s response to losing his captain, Royal fiancé and all-round rugby battering-ram, Mike Tindall, for today’s Grand Slam game against Ireland has been to insert an even bigger battering ram in the intimidating shape of Matt Banahan.

It is not the most imaginative solution in the world but it suggests a clarity of thought and decisiveness that has become the hallmark of the Johnson era in England.

The statistics on Banahan will make him instantly recognisable among the English players on show today: 6ft7in in height, 18 stone of muscle and more artwork on his arms than you will find in most galleries in Dublin these days.

It goes without saying he is not in the side because he has feet like Fred Astaire or is famed for ghosting through the narrowest of gaps left by opposition defences.

The reason Banahan looks more like a forward is, of course, that he was a forward until Brian Ashton figured he had the power and speed to do damage thundering like Lomu of old at lily-livered wing men standing at a mere 14 stone and 5ft 11ins and suddenly wondering if they wouldn’t be better off going back to accountancy.

Now, Banahan finds himself smack bang in the middle of the England’s three-quarters line and making his full Six Nations debut in a position where his experience his limited and in a match in which his opposite number, Brian O’Driscoll, is acknowledged as one of the all-time natural greats.

But then subtleties of actual positions don’t seem to matter much to the modern England rugby team. They are 15 incredibly strong men who go out to bludgeon opposition countries into submission.

If that doesn’t work, they bring on Jonny Wilkinson. As a plan, it is nothing if not practical.

But it would be easy to scoff at England pitting pure brawn against our own celebrated midfield maestro were it not for the fact Banahan could be wearing green this afternoon.

The surname suggests there must have been some Irish influence somewhere along the way, a fact that the man himself confirmed during the week when he revealed he might have declared for Ireland.

This was when he was still something of a secret, having fun with the England sevens and making his reputation as a connoisseur of crunching tackles. Banahan revealed he had been approached by Ireland but it was hardly the most lavish example of wooing a sportsman back to his ancestral home.

“I was close but it was literally one email,” Banahan said of the Irish interest in him.

Nobody expected the IRFU to fly an unproven Channel Islander over by private jet for a flashy dinner in Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud and exploratory talks over vintage brandy. But a single email does seem a tad casual now that the compilation films of Banahan shaking the living daylights out of such world luminaries as Conrad Smith, Janick Jauzion and Mirco Bergamasco present a body of evidence of a young man hell-bent on destruction. That last tackle was when Bergamasco was playing for Stade Francais and wearing that peculiar and ill-advised all-pink strip that the French club goes in for.

There is something about Banahan that suggests a blonde Italian wearing pink and running at him with a rugby ball is the kind of thing that would test his patience.

Further proof of his appetite for stopping the big men of world rugby in their tracks was offered last weekend when he knocked out Scotland’s Kelly Brown with a tackle.

“It is difficult to see where the damage was done,” the commentator told Brian Moore.

Even the Pitbull himself seemed a bit taken aback by the concussive power that Banahan possesses. But it wasn’t at all difficult to see what had happened. The damage was done when a great hulking Englishman (of Corkonian descent) clattered into a not quite as great hulking Scotsman who literally didn’t know what hit him.

Banahan walked away while Brown presumably dreamt. And that was that.

And England will be in similarly combative mood this afternoon. Slowly but surely they have climbed out of the lost years that plagued them since the World Cup success of 2003.

They are under no illusions about the fact they are coming into hostile territory but as James Haskell remarked, “Unless they firebomb the bus or storm the hotel with placards it’s a bit of an irrelevance to us.”

Firebomb the bus? Hasn’t someone told him it’s not quite as bad over here as it used to be? Still, it reveals a certain mindset. England are coming here in full metal jacket mode.

Ireland, meanwhile, are at sixes and sevens this year. It is highly unlikely Deccie Kidney and his staff ever entertained the old storming-the-hotel-with-placards tactic. Instead, they have gone for the more tried and tested method of changing their outhalves. The continuing debate on whether it should be Johnny or Ronan kicking for Ireland (the “or” is critical in this sentence) has been a constant background noise during this tournament.

The pattern of games so far has done nothing to resolve the issue as the months tick down to the forthcoming World Cup.

And there has been much gnashing of teeth about what has gone wrong for Ireland this year, with everything from vindictive referees to Twitter being held accountable for our failure to fire on all cylinders.

Some of Ireland’s old boys on the radio over the last week expressed their reservations about the wisdom of the players engaging with their public through social media.

Even some of those responding to Jamie Heaslip’s blogs on the cyber pages of this publication have issued schoolmasterly admonishments advising him to stick to the training, as if the Leinster man should be hammering tackle bags 24/7.

Could it be that “the lads”, as the Irish rugby team are often fondly referred to, have been thrown off-kilter by some of the less flattering comments floating about on the Twitasphere? It seems unlikely.

But there is something of the old days about this weekend. England are coming to town rampant and expectant. Ireland with nothing to play for except the characteristic that Ciarán Fitzgerald valued above them all: pride.

And they will be up against it. The hits will come early and often and with the added heft of the boy Banahan, the great grandson of a Cork man with a Lancaster Bomber inked onto his torso, roaming around the field in search of Irishmen to daze and confuse, it is going to be a bruising afternoon.

Mr Johnson would not have it any other way.