"WHAT the f*** was all that about?” said one seasoned observer, leaving Twickenham on Friday after a media conference to welcome Martin Johnson, who, not quite out of the blue, had been appointed England’s team manager.

The reference was not to events of the day, but to an agonising four months, starting in December when Rob Andrew confirmed Brian Ashton as England head coach on a rolling contract and ending with the day recently when the contract was rolled up. Despite the sight of the iconic Johnson back in charge, there are many people who see the main issue as whether or not Ashton should have been dispensed with, and the internal machinations of the act of dispensation.

Confusion continues even now. Despite Francis Baron, chief executive of the RFU, giving the impression that he expected Ashton to take up a new role in charge of the National Academy, it is far from clear that this is the case. A friend of Ashton’s yesterday revealed that the details of such a role had not been fully outlined and that, contrary to what Rob Andrew claimed, the former head coach had not yet ruled out legal action.

Baron is so angered by what he described as “private briefings” by his colleagues that he is contemplating launching an investigation. I can tell the Twickers police they will need many men.

What did happen? England finished second in the World Cup and Six Nations. These are facts. Now the slants. Some believe these finishes were an achievement. Others, including myself, saw England as incoherent, and felt Ashton was neither leading his coaching team nor selecting his players with true authority.

It is my understanding that Andrew and Baron felt Ashton should remain. But hawkish elements on the Management Board disagreed and told Andrew not to darken their door again with a broken record of status quo. They told him to get Johnson, full stop, reducing him to the role of go-between, not kingmaker.

There was now a kind of intermission. Andrew could hardly do a deal with Johnson by text. Johnson wanted to know what budget, reporting lines and which coaches he was saddled with, and even then he had to go away and fight his better judgment.

The problem was that Ashton had asked Phil de Glanville to be team manager and Austin Healey backs coach - he had been told by Andrew he could fill the positions. And in a parallel universe, Andrew was offering Johnson the managership, and Johnson had preliminary talks with Shaun Edwards. Johnson agreed to do the job. But how could Twickenham square this farce with a happy ending, with proper procedures? They did so by claiming Andrew was merely interviewing figures for the managership, that he had in fact interviewed up to six candidates and that Johnson best fitted the bill. The truth is that the job description was created specifically to fit Johnson and applied to him after he had been appointed. Ashton was never going to slot in as No 2.

Last Wednesday the board gathered to hear Andrew’s recommendation of Johnson. There was little objection. How could there be, with the prospect of new focus and inspiration?

What the meeting did hear was loud anger at the shocking treatment of Ashton, which has threatened to overshadow the euphoria of Johnson’s appointment. Other losers include Andrew and his authority, the board, de Glanville, Healey, and the RFU’s hard-won reputation for getting things right, with a certain sense of decency and style. It is staggering there have been no resignations.