So Martin Johnson found out what any flailing football manager knows too well.

Don’t expect anyone else to carry that can with you.

If he was looking for a bit of solidarity from above after England’s woeful World Cup effort, then he was once again bitterly disappointed.

Johnson has been let down on and off the pitch. So his Twickenham overlords were simply following the example of the players.

Wednesday’s press conference should have been a collective falling on the sword. Instead, Rob Andrew performed his best Pontius Pilate impression.

“Nothing to do with me guv” was the general reaction to any questions hinting at wholesale change in light of England’s failure to beat any rugby side of any note in New Zealand.

Having flannelled through his prepared notes, Andrew was eventually asked outright if he was going to quit.

The astonished reaction from the top table suggested that the RFU’s elite rugby director had been asked to crawl naked to the moon. “Me, why, never….”

Nope, boys, stick to pointing your fingers at that Johnson fella next to me. Nothing to see over here.

So much for the root and branch sort-out expected to prepare England properly for the next World Cup at home.

Instead, Andrew clings on grimly while offering the usual tea-and-sympathy soundbites for fall guy Johnson.

It sounds as if Johnno had made up his mind to go however his side had got on.

Now is a convenient changeover point at the end of a long cycle. Before the goings on Down Under, he had brought England a long way.

But given the total car-crash of a World Cup we have just witnessed, his should not have been the only resignation letter this week.

The couldn’t care less attitude away from the games suggested a squad that were completely out of control.

For that, the manager has to shoulder most of the blame. But not all.

The buck should not stop there. England should also drop the Pilate.