SO AFTER the mess that was the English rugby union World Cup campaign of a few weeks ago Martin Johnson has decided to fall on his sword.

While there has been some blame bandied about, I can’t help but think that the RFU’s original decision to select Jonno to guide their side was made with their hearts and not their heads.

There are just too many instances where the transition from inspirational player has led to the same person becoming a thoroughly an ineffective coach.

There really is a point at which you can be too close to the players and it looks from the outside as though Johnson was still too much a part of the dressing room mentality to be able to put enough distance between himself and his squad and be a winning coach.

On a personal level I saw it at close hand when Peter Smith was fleetingly put in charge at Featherstone Rovers.

A hard-as-nails defender yet very creative back row forward Smith, whose sublime ball-handling talents earned him half a dozen international caps, was part of the furniture at Featherstone – his dad Peter senior ran the club shop just across the street from the Post Office Road ground.

Smith had the respect of everyone at the club, but never managed to create enough distance between himself and the players he had grafted alongside in the blue and white hoops for so long and seemed to realise himself that the change in relationship was never going to work.

At probably every level of sport, and in all kinds of sport, clubs will have made the mistake of thinking that their most popular player – probably a true leader on the pitch – is the obvious choice as manager and got it wrong.

Probably what sums it up is that Johnson rubbished stories of his squad going out drinking in New Zealand by retorting something along the lines of ‘rugby players drink beer – why is that a headline?’

Well the problem is that it was that kind of defence, rather than taking what outwardly would have appeared to be a hard line, seemed to lead to some of his players feeling that having been given an inch they might as well take the rest of the yard and Jonno will be fine with it.

I honestly don’t think that Johnson is a bad coach, but what he needs to do is get away for a while and come back better qualified, with more experience and in charge of a group who are young enough not to have been his pals on the pitch.