IN TYPICAL no-nonsense style Martin Johnson yesterday cut through all the excess analytical baggage which has befuddled England's rugby brain at the World Cup.

The England captain did not actually say the 19 assistants assembled by Clive Woodward, including a visual awareness coach, were getting in the way of beating France on Sunday for a place in the World Cup final.

But when asked whether there were too many team meetings pouring over every spit and comma of their five matches so far, his verdict amounted to 'paralysis by analysis'.

"Good point, I'll forward that on," said Johnson to the questioner, though don't hold your breath that it will affect the hi-tech entourage assembled by Woodward.

For Johnson, winning rugby matches is not rocket science. It's about the size of the heart, the capacity of lungs, the presence of talent - and sheer bloody-minded determination.

"You run out on the field, it's a rectangular bit of grass. There's 15 of their players and 15 of ours and we kick off and receive play," said Johnson, who admits England have struggled in three matches against South Africa, Samoa and Wales last weekend.

"The game's about passion and emotion and we've got to raise the stakes on that level. It's a World Cup semi-final for God's sake and the prize is enormous at the end.

"Wales would have loved to have won that game. When I was a boy we hadn't beaten Wales at Cardiff for 23 years. We've beaten them three times this year. We can play, we know we can, we've got great players. But we've got no divine right to win anything.

"We're not getting our own way as much as we have done in previous games but that's to be expected. Teams are getting up for us. There'll be times when we are under pressure and times when we get on top."

The chances of them being under severe pressure against a French side rapidly proving to be the team of the tournament are high, even if they have beaten France in two of their last three matches England, for all their will to win, have lost the sharpness which took them to triumphs against Australia and New Zealand on their own soil just six months ago.

Perhaps it has been lost, along with the bucketfuls of sweat, on the training ground at their Bagshot base.

Whatever, Johnson's philosophy is brutally simplistic for the rest of this tournament - never mind the quality, feel the wins.

"You have to do what you have to do to win the game. If you don't play an all-singing, alldancing game people think it's not great," said Johnson.

"But it's about winning matches and I know I keep saying that so much I'm boring myself. If we lose games and we've played well then you can live with yourself. But if you lose games and don't think you've played well then the disappointment is huge."