'In the past there were maybe times when we lacked that mentality against the Southern Hemisphere teams. There were a couple of matches when the team wasn't as confident about winning as they should have been but that hasn't been the case in recent years.
'What happened in Pretoria last summer was a case of a young player reacting to provocation. Those sorts of things happen in a split- second and you regret them for a long time afterwards.'
Johnson will be too busy ensuring that manager Clive Wood-ward's tub-thumping cry 'we expect to win' rings true to give more than a passing thought to the fact that he over-takes Wade Dooley as his country's most-capped lock with 56. Johnson may be something of an anorak when it comes to sporting knowledge but he hasn't got where he is today by wasting time counting his caps.
The drawn series in South Africa strengthened England's collective sense of belief. But the man who captained the last Lions tour - and will probably captain the next - knows better than anyone that the Australians take an awful lot of beating.
He knows, too, that England have let them off the hook in three of the last four meetings, the exception being the 76-0 debacle in Brisbane when the dispatching of a squad made up of second and third choice players provoked a diplomatic incident.
In Sydney last year, England gave the Wallabies a pasting only to let them bounce off the ropes and administer a painful lesson in the art of creating tries out of nothing.
At Twickenham two years ago, England scored the only try and still contrived to lose by a point to the last of John Eales' four penalties. Naturally enough, Johnson dismisses any suggestion that the sight of all that green and gold represents a psychological barrier.
'I thought we would beat them last year and our players are that much more experienced now,' he said. 'I don't think there is any psychological problem.
'What they have done in rugby league, cricket and at the Olympics doesn't really come into it.
'The Wallabies are very hard to break down but it's up to us to find a way.'
