Great expectation, but dealing with the pressure is part of my job, says Martin Johnson

"There should be a high expectation on our teams to do well in the major sports," he said. "Dealing with the pressure that brings is a major part of the job.

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"In one sense that's great, because when I was growing up there wasn't an expectation on the England rugby team. Let's be frank, there was a hope, not an expectation."

That expectation will soar through the roof now that Captain Colossus has ended his four-and-a-half year retirement from national affairs — given that the English mantra that they should never settle for second best in the Test arena is in sore need of reassurance.

When it comes to winning the World Cup, Johnson can talk from personal experience.

But the penalty of success is such that the Red Rose legions will expect him to do it again at the earliest opportunity — in Auckland on October 21, 2011.

That England have won nothing since 2003, losing more games than they have won and sacking successive head coaches along with various other coaches in the process, has served only to raise Johnson as a leader of almost infallible status.

His career was littered with bloodied examples of taking the law into his own hands but he, alone of that 2003 operation, was smart enough to get out at the top, with the gold trophy in his hands.

Johnson, his way cleared by the RFU with Brian Ashton's sacking as head coach, has a word for it — perception.

He said: "There is this perception that we always won, that we were always successful. Of course we weren't. We lost games. We made mistakes. I have my eyes wide open. I'm not thinking I can turn up and this will work straight away.

"The first time I went to Twickenham after the 2003 World Cup, people were saying: 'When are you coming back? Why aren't you involved?' The perception was that if I did get involved, everything would be OK and we'd be successful again. That's the perception. It's not the reality and it never was the reality."

Yet barely six months ago, before the RFU had completed their post-World Cup review and re-appointed Ashton, Johnson had dealt himself out of the equation, mildly ridiculing the idea of how anyone with no coaching or management experience could expect to walk straight in to coach and manage England.

Strangely, the RFU's director of elite rugby Rob Andrew had not seen fit to meet Johnson as part of the review process before the former captain counted himself out.

Johnson said: "I did say that I hadn't coached or managed and the facts haven't changed. In the last year or so I've been thinking about getting back into the game. I always knew that when I retired, some day, somehow, somewhere I would get back into the game. Did I think my first involvement would be this? Of course not. But sometimes opportunities come up in life. I didn't ever want to be sat down in 10 or 20 years thinking 'If only '."

Did he ever think that one day he would be at top table in the Six Nations suite behind the North Stand at Twickenham alongside Francis Baron, the RFU chief executive whom Johnson blamed for forcing his England squad into their wildcat strike eight years ago? They have never been bosom pals.

"You never imagine falling out with the RFU," said Johnson, laughing. "These things happen."

For his attempt to emulate German football legend Franz Beckenbauer by taking the national team to World Cup victory without any prior managerial or coaching experience, Johnson's England will play five of their next six Tests against New Zealand (three times), South Africa and Australia.

He said: "People talk about your reputation and ask why put it on the line? I don't care about that. I put my reputation on the line as a player and got criticised for various things, sometimes rightly so.

"You are going to make mistakes. But you do what you think is right. If you are honest and you have the right intentions, you can live with yourself. It's about creating the right culture by getting the right people into all the various roles and helping them reach their potential.

"It's good to change the coaching staff at times, bring in fresh ideas. Players respond to good coaching. If they have a good, respectful relationship it breeds confidence and everything that goes with it.

"I always felt as captain that it gets overplayed. We all want our heroes and our legends but the reality of why we were successful was not mainly due to me being a good captain. It was what we had as a collective team and the people surrounding us."