Martin Johnson joy as England reach peak fitness levels

Martin Johnson insists that England are the fittest they have been since he became manager after responding to the ever- increasing speed of the game.

Global Positioning System monitors have been used by England in training for the past year, to measure individual players' heart-rate, distance travelled and speed. They can even detect if they are suffering from illness or carrying an injury.

Training schedules are then tailored to ensure that players are not over or under-exerted and that practice drills mimic the demands of rugby as much as possible. Johnson has already seen the benefits of a system that is also used by eight of the 12 Aviva Premiership clubs.

"The guys came in recently and were (fitness) tested and the results were the best since I've been here," he said. "Some of the guys had world-class statistics a year ago but others who weren't quite there have improved.

"Last summer I thought that we could improve our fitness in certain areas. It wasn't unsatisfactory a year ago, but it's definitely better now and it needs to be.

"Fitness-wise we are up there now, but the key thing is what the score is when we play teams like New Zealand."

England have been forced to improve their conditioning as the intensity of matches, both international and in the Premiership, grows. "We talked about it before the summer tour to Australia and New Zealand, but the players have to experience it for themselves," Johnson said.

"Even in the midweek games the players were saying afterwards that it was the fastest pace they had experienced.

"What we've seen in the first two weeks of the Premiership has been great — the continuity in the games, the ability to keep the ball and run it, and the speed at the breakdown.

"The speed of the game has definitely increased — we saw it coming at the end of last season and during the summer tour.''

The acid test of England's conditioning will come this autumn when New Zealand, Australia, Samoa and South Africa visit Twickenham.

Johnson could be forgiven a shudder at the prospect of facing the southern hemisphere giants on successive weekends once again, not least after this season's Tri-Nations. The All Blacks won a high-quality tournament by winning all six games and, while South Africa imploded, Australia looked very impressive at times. But Johnson, buoyed by England's defeat of the Wallabies in June, is undaunted.

"I'm not fazed by what I've seen in the Tri-Nations, but what I've told the players is that we have to get back to Test match intensity from the start," he said.

"When you play these guys they have the ability to score points quickly so we have to be right on our game from the start.''