England’s plans for Saturday have been thrown into chaos by an injury crisis which has cost Johnson a third of his senior elite squad, including seven guaranteed starters.

Johnson had to make 11 changes to his squad last week and then allowed seven players to return to their clubs for Guinness Premiership duty.

As a result, Johnson and the England management team are yet to finalise their team - and have pushed their announcement back by 24 hours.

Johnson explained: “Due to a number of players joining and leaving the squad over the last few days, we have not reached a final decision on our 22 for Saturday’s Investec Challenge match against Australia.

“Therefore we have decided to delay naming the Test side until Wednesday.”

One positive is that Johnson finds himself in the rare position of being an England coach finalising his Test selection without having to fret over the fitness of Jonny Wilkinson. Neither Andy Robinson nor Brian Ashton before him enjoyed that same pleasure too often as Wilkinson spent the years after his 2003 World Cup-winning heroics battling through a succession of 13 injuries.

Whenever Wilkinson was available for England it was, by his own admission, no more than a “funny little cameo” before he was sidelined by another frustrating medical mishap.

In five years, Wilkinson did not play more than six consecutive matches and he was horribly out of sorts on his last start for England, in the 9-3 defeat to Scotland in 2008.

Wilkinson, now 30, is back in prime form and rude health after a revitalising summer move to Toulon and he is certain to start against Australia this weekend.