Graphic: Semi-final showdowns

Martin Johnson faced a few nerve-racking moments as a player and the weekend just gone can be added to them because, over the past 48 hours, Johnson’s new role as England team manager has been to check through a lengthening list of injured players before confirming at Twickenham tomorrow his first touring party, which leaves on June 1 for two internationals against New Zealand this summer.

Even then he is not out of the woods because, 24 hours earlier, the Guinness Premiership grand final will have been played between the winners of Sunday’s semi-finals, London Wasps versus Bath and Gloucester versus Leicester. Those four clubs will surely provide about half of Johnson’s squad and his texting finger would have been sore on Saturday as he and John Wells, the England forwards coach, kept in touch from their respective eyries in Gloucester and Leicester.

Johnson watched Mike Tindall, a potential England captain, limp prematurely out of Gloucester’s win over Bath with a damaged left ankle, to be followed by Matt Stevens (knee) and Lee Mears (shoulder) from his prospective front row. Both clubs were reticent about the recovery period, although not one of the trio has been ruled out of the play-offs, while Paul Sackey left Headingley Carnegie on crutches after the wing damaged knee ligaments during the win by Wasps over Leeds; they will receive further assessments today.

Johnson has also to consider those players who may complete the domestic season but then require treatment during the summer. Harry Ellis, the Leicester scrum half, is one such and James Simpson-Daniel, Gloucester’s outstanding wing, is another. Simpson-Daniel was omitted by Brian Ashton from this year’s RBS Six Nations Championship squad because of a perceived physical fragility, was called up for the final weekend and promptly hurt an ankle.

Yet he can do no wrong for Gloucester. He received his club’s player of the year award on Saturday and has ended the regular Premiership season with nine tries, equal third behind Tom Varndell, of Leicester, and Matt Banahan, of Bath. Simpson-Daniel is eager to add to his meagre tally of ten caps, but also has an appointment with his surgeon about a worsening condition affecting his left shoulder. “I can’t worry about it at the moment, it’s good enough to play and everyone carries knocks when they’re playing,” Simpson-Daniel, who will turn 26 at the end of this month, said.

He has enjoyed this club season more than any other, but acknowledges that, if Gloucester are to be considered the best club in the country, they must win the play-offs, which they failed to do in 2003 (beaten 39-3 by Wasps) and last year (beaten 44-16 by Leicester). “We can’t allow the play-offs to become a coin toss, we need to make sure there’s a bigger gap than there was against Bath,” he said.

“Nor can we keep saying we’re a work in progress for five more years. Dean [Ryan, the Gloucester head coach] said it would take a few years, but maybe this is the season when we can’t afford to say, ‘There’s another season to come.’ The majority of our players are fit, we have to go out and prove we’re the best.”

Those seeking omens will note that Wasps, champions in three consecutive years from 2003 to 2005, came from second place in the final table every time, the same position they now occupy, although in the first of those years it was a straight play-off between the clubs finishing first and second. Gloucester supporters who watched their team, fried in the sun five years ago and will remember that match being played on May 31, as this year’s final will be.

The previous club to win a Premiership match at Kingsholm were Leicester, on February 9, and their return there this weekend is little short of miraculous. Wasps have the confidence of having beaten Bath home and away this season and there is always the Lawrence Dallaglio factor: their iconic captain retires at the season’s end and now that Wasps have reached the play-offs for the fifth time in the six years of the system, neither player nor club would wish Twickenham to pass them by, although Dallaglio will remember that, in similar circumstances in 2005, his club denied Johnson and Neil Back one last triumph before they rode off into the sunset.