WE are a merciless lot in the media, so I was told last week by what can be termed sources close to the England management. They are getting their excuses in for their shocking autumn campaign, it seems, by complaining that we loaded too much expectation on the poor dears by suggesting that they might actually be expected to win the odd game over the autumn - in fact, I suggested that they should be expected to win all four.

Let us leave aside for the moment, as we wait for Martin Johnson’s new squad to be announced on Wednesday, the fact that not only did they not win their big games in the autumn, but they also did not play remotely to the standard of a proper international team.

But what about this cruel weight of expectation? Please tell me why England are so disadvantaged in any sphere of the talent at their disposal, the time they spend with their players or any other essential, that they should not be expected to beat any team at home at any time? Last time I looked, they were not a third-world rugby nation, even if the suspicion is that they may be dropping down a world or two as we speak.

So sorry, but these attempts to buy themselves time they should not need and do not deserve are hogwash. There are no excuses. If Johnson’s coaching squad and merry men do not deliver an absolute minimum of second place in the forthcoming RBS Six Nations, then they have failed. They have more resources and more time than all their competitors, so what, exactly, is the problem?

One of the most lamentable excuses of all is their theory of a lost generation. The England hierarchy keep claiming that their pool of players is either too old or too inexperienced, with nobody in the middle. But I can tell you precisely where that lost generation went. They were cast out by successive England managements, including the current one, by the ruinous predilection of selectors to ignore solid and experienced performers in favour of hopeless meteors.

Let me give you one example. Last week, Bath had to draft in a new front row against Leicester. In came David Barnes and Duncan Bell to prop, with notables such as Matt Stevens unavailable.

Both Barnes and Bell were discarded years ago by England, and put on that scrapheap of smugness in which selectors deem they will never get there. In came Stevens and the rest of his generation. Yet Bell and Barnes took Leicester to the cleaners up front.

Bell has the oversized look of a pantomime villain, possibly even a joke figure. The joke was on Leicester, though, because not only did he hammer them in the scrum, but he carried the ball as well as, if not better than, any other England prop of recent vintage, Stevens included.

Towards the end, Leicester had to call for unopposed scrums, something which bailed out their retreating pack. Amazingly, this application of uncontested scrums was not met with the same derision by the Leicester followers as they greeted a similar Wasps transition earlier in the season.

The point is that Bell and Barnes are far, far from alone in being discarded too early in favour of inferior youth. Gradually, some of the youngsters who came nonsensically early into the England squad are even being weeded out of their club teams.

We will discover this week whether the penny has dropped, and whether Johnson twigs that instead of complaining about an inexperienced squad, he brings in experience. Simple. Granted, it is not a long-term proposition. As if anyone gives a hoot in rugby about the long term. If they do, they should be shot.

Just as a start, and to hell with their ages, I would bring in Barnes, Bell, Mike Tindall and Olly Barkley. And at a push, and only a small push, I would hastily evaluate the recent performances of Andy Goode, Ben Cohen, Ben Kay and anyone else on the England rugby planet excluded too early.

Either that, or we will start hearing that we are putting too much pressure on England by daring to suggest that they might manage to beat Italy, at home.