Martin Johnson hits out at ridiculous criticism of England

Martin Johnson today branded criticism of England after their poor November Test series as "hysterical" and "ridiculous".

England lost to Australia and New Zealand while their victory over Argentina was so scrappy they were booed off at half-time by the Twickenham crowd. Johnson's former team-mates, Will Greenwood, Josh Lewsey and Matt Dawson, were among those to slam England with the coaching staff coming in for the most flak.

However, Johnson is standing by his coaches - John Wells (forwards), Mike Ford (defence), Brian Smith (attack), Graham Rowntree (scrum) and Jonathan Callard (kicking).

"It would be easy to sack x, y, z and buy yourself the time by blaming others," said the team manager. "That would be easy but it wouldn't be right.

"We know as coaches and a team we can play better and it's become the thing to speculate about the coaches and quite frankly people don't know what really goes on. We know we have to take some criticism because we haven't been good enough but it's been almost hysterical and becomes ridiculous at times. It goes too far."

Johnson has been particularly hurt by attacks on Wells, who guided Leicester to English and European triumphs and was part of the coaching set-up that got England into the 2007 World Cup Final. Johnson said: " He has come in for a lot of criticism but our set piece has been more effective this autumn than a year ago. Some of the criticism has been so far off the mark and I believe his record is there to be looked at."

Although Johnson defended his men he added: "It's not nice to sack people but if I thought that decision was the best I would make it."

Rob Andrew, the Rugby Football Union's elite rugby director, made it clear he relied on Johnson to select both the coaching panel and players.

He said: "We are confident about the ability of the coaching team to take England forward and we all know there are issues which are being addressed.

"I said the autumn matches would be the acid test and I believe that there has been improvement when you look over the last year."

Andrew admitted some England fans were "disenchanted" but said the absences of up to 10 players due to injury could not be underestimated.