THOSE of us who have gone to battle alongside - or perhaps just behind – Martin Johnson can testify that while off the field he can be a font of boring and sleep-inducing stories, he is not only sharp and bright but he also possesses a massive rugby intellect.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons why many of us are still very surprised that he is about to be confirmed as the new England rugby supremo. Why would anyone as clever as Martin want to work for a bunch like the Rugby Football Union?

On the other hand, from the first moment I came across him in the England team, he was a person who confounded expectations. I remember him being called up dramatically late before the France match in 1993, after Wade Dooley had dropped out. He looked young and inexperienced and was in a totally new environment and yet he seemed born to it as soon as he trotted onto the field. He was so comfortable. Perhaps it is too much to expect that he will slot into national team management quite so easily, but the point is that he is not to be underestimated.

As a character, we were always friendly although because I was not by calling or inclination a Leicester Tiger, I was never quite as close to Johnno as I was with some of the more hard-drinking forwards such as Jason Leonard. At that time, Leicester were a little bit like Goldman Sachs in the banking world, the cream of everything. The Tigers players stuck together.

Martin as a character was neither in your face nor extravagant; neither was he aloof or shy. Even from the beginning he was never fazed by big names such as Will Carling, Rory Underwood or Rob Andrew. He has always had about him the air of a man going about his job. But I am still so surprised that he wants to put himself through this. After the World Cup, it took him 18 more months to finally retire. My gut feeling is that he had made his mind up much earlier, probably before he lifted the Webb Ellis trophy itself.

However, as he is clever and careful, he then took more time to avoid a rushed decision. But I always thought that once the decision to leave rugby had been made, then it would have been final.

There is no question that he has the rugby knowledge to succeed, and that he has the attention to detail and the understanding of the game. But he has so much ground to make up – last week, Sir Clive Woodward said in this newspaper that to earn the respect of the players, he should don a tracksuit and become a coach, even if he is only paying attention to areas such as the scrum and lineout.

This is important not just to establish himself with the players, but also to polish up his understanding of the modern game. He has been out of the mainstream for at least three years, and when you consider that one week can be a long time in sport, then you realise how out of touch he may be with today’s game.

There is also the fact that the respect in which he is held is merely a kind of lip-service of those many players in the England squad who have never played with him and who have never come across him close up. Of course he has respect, but it is important that he renews that respect among the England squad, by working hard and proving that he is a modern-era rugby man as well.

And in terms of the job description, I have to say that all the finest supremos I worked with were very much overall managers, but still wore a tracksuit. Geoff Cooke, Jack Rowell and Sir Clive Woodward were all figures of enormous authority and had a certain charisma but they all appeared regularly on the training field and their authority increased as a result.

Yet when it comes down to it, there is a certain comfort about the idea of Johnson taking complete control, even though he has been nowhere near this kind of role in his life. He still strikes me as Maximus of the Gladiators, and you know that what needs doing will be done, despite the pain and adversity. It will be difficult in that he can no longer achieve things simply by gritting his teeth and leading from the front, but if anyone can buck the trend that suggests great ex-players do not become great managers, then it is he.

It is a good thing that he is going in on his terms. This was something that Sir Clive achieved, before then surrounding himself with quality coaches so that he was getting the best advice from the best people. This idea of calling your own shots is something that has never happened in the coaching regimes of Andy Robinson and Brian Ashton and they have certainly suffered as a consequence.

It is either a comforting or a frightening thought that Martin Johnson has never failed in anything that he has tried. He returns to the game as a rookie with massive responsibilities. My feeling is that his perfect record may well continue.