Rob Andrew must have thrown a few dodgy passes in his time, but none quite so self-serving as the one that he has lobbed to Martin Johnson. Should Brian Ashton be sacked as England's rugby head coach? Over to you, Johnno. You run with that one while I sit on a beach in Greece.

Fresh from his holiday, Andrew returns to work today hoping that Johnson will have decided to take up the reins as manager of the England team. Praying, too, that England's great warrior forward will have resolved the Ashton debate one way or the other.

It is an extraordinary performance from the man who carries the title of the RFU's director of elite rugby but whose strategy amounts to giving Johnson a blank sheet of paper on which to write his job description (although, sadly, not his own salary). And there we were thinking that Andrew was paid £400,000 a year to make the tough decisions.

What Johnson makes of it we can expect to find out shortly, but, rather than a dream ticket, it may feel like grappling the entire France pack. Does he want the job and, if so, what job? Will he manage or coach? Who works alongside him? What of Ashton? Not easy decisions for a man who has no management experience to fall back on, for all the glory of his playing career.

On top of those dilemmas, if Johnson is not questioning the organisation he would be joining, and particularly the boss he would be working for, he should be. It was only a couple of weeks ago that Andrew told this newspaper that Ashton was safe until the summer, but now everything appears under review thanks to powerful and disgruntled voices on the management board. It makes sense given England's lurching inconsistencies, but says little for Andrew's authority.

So now Johnson stands at a defining fork in the road. We know he is keen to be back in the game, but should he take his first job with England? He is no fool and has previously intimated that he should start lower down, putting the blocks in place that can sustain him through the difficult days of a long coaching career.

As a man with a wide sporting background - Johnson is a keen fan of football, both English and American - he will know that there are examples in international sport of those who have taken huge jobs with little preparation. Franz Beckenbauer's first role in management was with the Germany national team and they reached two World Cup finals. Another German, Jürgen Klinsmann, also proved inspirational.

If anyone can prove an exception in rugby, Johnson is said to be that man, although not even his greatest admirers can state with certainty that he would be a success. How can they? Johnson has never managed or coached a rugby team.

Appointing him would be almost as much of a gamble as if the FA had turned to Alan Shearer after Steve McClaren's departure.

Wisely, the organisation thought that such a challenging, high-profile position should go not to someone who had spent the past few years sitting on a pundit's sofa, but to someone with multiple championship titles. They wanted the man who had been there and done it for their £6 million a year.

This debate takes place with the knowledge that the men who should be managing England are, of course, running Wales. But Andrew let Warren Gatland and Shaun Edwards slip through his fingers.

Now Johnson is being targeted as the England rugby team's supremo, although in an undefined role. For Andrew, the detail is probably less important than ensuring that the hulking figure of Johnno, the great World Cup-winning captain, can shield him from further criticism.

Part of you hopes that Johnson will announce that he has turned down the RFU's offer to go and learn his trade with the Leicester second string, confident that he will be a better England coach in the future for starting on the bottom rung. It would show, spectacularly, that he is his own man.

Andrew, meanwhile, hopes that Johnson is lured by the national cause, the chance, once again, to be of service to his country. But then the director of elite rugby needs Johnson to save his own bacon, never mind England's.

Eager young talent bows to the unjustified and ancient

We all love arcane laws. Such as the old London bylaw that a pregnant woman can relieve herself anywhere, including in a policeman's helmet. Or that it is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament. In France, it is still forbidden to call a pig Napoleon. To that list, we can add the FA's ban on playing football in June.

I wish it was a joke, but it is anything but for the organisers of a youth tournament in Bedfordshire, who have been ordered to cancel their event because it goes against B8c in the FA's rulebook banning 11-a-side football for one month of the year.

You may not be familiar with B8c and nor were Bedford Park Rangers. They had no reason to have heard of it, having run their tournament successfully over the past few years, raising thousands of pounds for kit, balls, nets and goals. The Bedfordshire FA had even promoted the event on its website and, as usual, had promised to supply the referees.

But then someone with too much time on their hands - the sort of person who reads the FA rulebook for pleasure - came across B8c. In banning 11-a-side football in June unless it is played by the Forces, by Boys' Brigades or Scouts, at village fêtes, is sanctioned by Fifa or Uefa or involves a professional club, it was a jobsworth's delight. An excuse to spoil the fun for hundreds of children.Bedford Park Rangers put in calls to Soho Square, as did The Times yesterday, and got much the same response, which can best be described as embarrassment.

The explanation was that it was an ancient rule, which the FA's executive acknowledges as ludicrously out of date and is keen to erase. It says that it has been chipping away for years, shortening a close season that used to stretch from the first Saturday in May until mid-August to keep village greens free for cricket.

The FA insists, privately, that it would do away with the regulation, but, being part of the official rulebook, B8c can be changed only by a vote in the 92-man council. We all know what that means. Glaciers move quicker.

This would seem bizarre at any time, but coming when the FA is championing its support for grassroots football on the back of a £200million investment, the good people of Bedfordshire and beyond are particularly angry. An arcane law - such as a ban on Welshmen in Chester after sundown - is harmless fun so long as no one is daft enough to enforce it.

Capello's starting XI in Paris

Salute David Beckham's deserved 100th cap whenever it comes tomorrow evening, but Fabio Capello should start with this team in Paris: James; Johnson, Terry, Ferdinand, A Cole; Gerrard, Hargreaves, Lampard; Walcott, Rooney, J Cole. Pace and balance in a hard-to-beat 4-3-3.