Martin Johnson’s choice of a second-row forward to shoulder the burden of the England captaincy may have had a whiff of cliché about it, given that the World Cup-winning captain spent his entire rugby career looking at life from the darkest recesses of the scrum, but the new man – Steve Borthwick of Bath – is studiously avoiding the hackneyed old “one game at a time” line. Borthwick intends to take it two games at a time; not a radical departure, admittedly, but different enough to be going on with.

Colin Charvis, once captain of Wales, has finally seen his Test career buried despite the Grand Slam champions’ shortage of specialist open-side flankers ahead of next month’s trip to South Africa. Charvis has lost out to two non-specialists, the versatile Ospreys back-rower Jonathan Thomas and the Llanelli Scarlets forward Dafydd Jones, who last played for his country in 2006.

Many details have already been finalised for next year’s British and Irish Lions assault on South Africa, where the tourists will play 10 matches, three of them Tests, in the land of the reigning world champions. The Lions hierarchy have decided that each player should earn upwards of £30,000 each for his efforts – nice work if you can get it – and plan to travel with a normal-sized squad on a normal-sized plane, rather than take enough personnel to fill Thunderbird II, as Sir Clive Woodward did for the hapless 2005 contest in New Zealand. Oh, one other thing: Ian McGeechan will be in charge.

Martin Johnson used to be rather good at the numbers game during his playing days – “You thump me once, I’ll thump you twice” – but those doing the maths in respect of the new England manager’s first shot at team selection must be scratching their heads in disbelief at the pace and scale of change. Johnson is sending six uncapped players, plus a fistful of international rookies, to New Zealand for next month’s Test series with the All Blacks. Remarkably, less than 50 per cent of the party who crossed the water for last autumn’s World Cup campaign in France will board the plane to Auckland.

Ian McGeechan will lead the 2009 British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa,
it was confirmed this morning.