What do you want from your captain? Tub-thumping, jaw-jutting, eyes-popping leadership by example, or what Sir Clive Woodward wanted: fire in the belly but ice in the brain? The question is asked because Steve Borthwick, the England captain, is not universally perceived as the long-term answer in the role.

Borthwick's image on the pitch may be described as polite, and that gets you nowhere. But what he will treasure above all is that, standing firmly behind him, he has Martin Johnson, who became the World Cup-winning captain that Woodward sought. If Johnson, now the team manager, did not believe that Borthwick was the right man for the role, he would not have given it to him.

“Steve's doing a fantastic job,” Johnson said yesterday when challenged about Borthwick's qualities. “You don't see what he does all week off the field. He understands the game, he understands what we're trying to achieve. He can't control all the actions of 14 other guys.”

Even more to the point, one member of the Australia management group said last weekend that he could not understand why Borthwick should attract criticism, that the Australia players had been impressed by him during and after Saturday's match. When Johnson appointed Borthwick without setting a term to his captaincy, some pundits assumed that that was because it might be only in the short term, but the reverse is also true. It could take in the 2011 World Cup.

The difficulty for Borthwick, the 29-year-old Cumbrian who took root at Bath before his summer move to Saracens, is that he has had to spend so long becoming first-choice England lock, never mind captain. Against South Africa on Saturday he will win his 42nd cap, of which ten have come off the bench. He has had no more than two full seasons when he was first choice - this is his third - since making his international debut in 2001.

He has had to fight his way out from under the shadows cast by Johnson, Danny Grewcock, Ben Kay and Simon Shaw. That he could not force a way through earlier in his career could be construed as a criticism, but the experience has helped to shape what he is and has added to the trust placed in him by Bath, whom he led for three seasons, and Saracens, who appointed him co-captain as soon as he arrived. It was Grewcock who said that, when he was Bath captain, Borthwick did all his thinking for him.

The England captain is a serious analyst of lineout play and of the game as a whole. True, he is not Johnson, but who is? Nor was Johnson the first choice as Woodward's captain.

Johnson, moreover, grew up with an outstanding group of players - Dallaglio, Matt Dawson, Neil Back, Kyran Bracken, all of whom captained England - and was soon joined by Phil Vickery, Jonny Wilkinson and Jason Robinson. Now only Vickery is left as a genuine rival as captain to Borthwick and he has to work hard to ensure his place in the starting XV at tight-head prop, ahead of Matt Stevens.

So Borthwick is being given his chance to grow into the role, as player and leader, just as Johnson is giving the whole group the chance to mature in the hottest of hothouses this autumn. He hopes, thereby, to see other leaders emerge. Jamie Noon has obvious responsibilities as the captain of England's defence, but England need tactical guidance on the field from Nick Easter, the No8, and Danny Care and Danny Cipriani, the young half backs, because leadership is part and parcel of their role.

When the members of the team management sit down next month to discuss their findings, they will hope for firm evidence that Tom Rees, his injury problems far behind him, is among a new generation of leaders. They have had the chance to observe the impact that James Haskell has on his colleagues in training and they may think that Riki Flutey's reading of the game makes him a potential leader, if not necessarily the team captain.

There is plenty growing in Johnson's garden. International sport is an unforgiving arena, but after England have played the world's top three countries he will know far more whether something special is about to bloom - and about his head gardener on the pitch.