England 6 South Africa 42

WHETHER Martin Johnson's perma-scowl will ever thaw is hard to predict, but for the foreseeable future, we should resign ourselves to a look that would give a polar bear the shivers. Certainly, this embarrassing performance against the world champions made his mood as wintry as the weather.

Not only that, it raised questions about the manager himself - whether, after all, it was such a good idea to put a man in charge of the national team who has no previous experience of such a task, even at club level, and whose main role since his playing career ended in 2005 has been as a corporate schmoozer. At times, the England performance was little short of clueless, for which Johnson has to take much of the rap.

He refused to criticise how the team played, presumably mindful that their confidence needs nursing before Saturday's match against New Zealand, but his undertaker's expression told us what he really felt. "It was a brutal lesson for all of us to learn," he said. "We can either pack it all in or come back stronger. It's all about character. We have to get our heads up this week."

After three games in charge, Johnson's record stands at one inconsequential win, against the Pacific Islanders two weeks ago, and two defeats, the first against Australia last weekend and now this record thrashing by a South Africa side, whose scrambled victories against Wales and Scotland had alerted England to the possibility of a morale-bolstering success.

Instead, England continued where they left off a week earlier with a frustrating performance in which the team's potential was heavily outweighed by their propensity for making a hash of things. The potential resides most obviously in the backs. Sadly, though, on this day it was their lack of experience that was more evident than their promise, their frustration at not managing to turn possession into points leading to errors and, worse, aimlessness.

What Johnson's team really lacks is, well, a Martin Johnson - a dominant presence among the front five forwards around whom the side can regroup during those periods of a match when they cede control to their opponents. The really effective teams tend to have such a player: think John Eales for Australia in 1999, Johnson for England in 2003 and Victor Matfield for South Africa in 2007.

Johnson put up a stout defence of his criticised captain, Steve Borthwick, the big forward whom the manager wants to become a player in his own image, when he told the media that we "don't feel or hear what goes on out there on the field". All right, but what we see surely counts for something, and what we saw again from Borthwick was not a presence that can revitalise a team at crucial moments.

Having lost by 36 points, it is now decimal points that will decide England's fate in the draw for the 2011 World Cup. England's defeat by Australia last Saturday cost them fourth place in the rankings on which the seedings will be based - and left them exposed to being drawn in the same group as one of the big three from the southern hemisphere.

The margin is desperately tight - before Saturday, Argentina had 82.82 points to England's 82.11. The International Rugby Board will come up with the revised standings on Monday.

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