Tom Croft has always had the speed.

There are those, notably Aaron Mauger, Croft’s New Zealand team-mate at Leicester, who watch his jersey blur past and insist he is the fastest forward in world rugby.

Against the Australians at Twickenham tomorrow, however, the England flanker is looking to prove that he also has the fire required of a top rugby international.

Croft said: “I’ve had to work very hard on adapting to things, deciding when I can use my pace and when I have to get my head stuck in and do the hard work.”

There could be no better or demanding teacher when it comes to aggression and work rate than England team manager Martin Johnson, a man Croft idolised when he was growing up as a would-be professional sportsman.

The legendary World Cup-winning captain has been dispensing his abrasive brand of rugby for only a few short weeks at England’s training headquarters in Bagshot.

Yet while the first win against the Pacific Islanders last weekend proved that England are very much a work in progress, Croft has no doubts that they will not be found lacking for aggression.

Croft said: “Johnno’s leading the training sessions and that need for aggression is what you take from them. He was a very physical rugby player and we want to take that emphasis into the game on Saturday.

“When I was growing up Johnson was my idol. You looked up to him. You saw what he did and tried to base your game around him.

“What’s my role? Contributing to the line-outs as much as possible, attack and defence and getting around the park. Linking up with the backs and obviously adding that physical edge.

“We have been slowly ramping it up during the week so when we get to Saturday we will be really firing.”
At 23, Croft, articulate and intelligent, is one of the dynamic players who Johnson has identified as being the future of his team.

He was born in Basingstoke, played his colts rugby for Newbury, won his first representative honours for Berkshire B, and is a past pupil of Oakham School in Rutland which also spawned Leicester team-mate Lewis Moody and cricketer Stuart Broad.

Most significantly, Croft is a naturally talented athlete, clocking in at 6ft 6ins and 16st 5lb and a spectacular sight when he gets those long levers whirring, most notably when scoring the match-winning try for England Saxons in the 2007 Churchill Cup final against New Zealand Maori.

Part of his agility comes from the DNA supplied by his dad who played for Bristol and Gloucester schools.

Part he attributes to the West Berkshire Youth Dance Group, with which he studied dance at GCSE level.

Not that anyone should expect him to follow in the shoes of Austin Healey and Matt Dawson as the next rugby player on Strictly Come Dancing.

“I didn’t do ballroom,” he said, insisting it was more contemporary street dancing, before adding: “I’m already regretting putting it down on my biog. I might get it edited out for the future.”

It is just the sort of fact which might spark a sledge or two from an Australia side which beat New Zealand in the Tri-Nations in July and is never slow to crank up the intensity.

Croft, however, cannot wait to win his sixth cap. “Australia are one of the world’s best teams,” he said. “Very skilful and very physical.

“But after every match you have to raise your game a level to sort the things out that go wrong. You have to build on performances. If you stayed at the same level teams would know what you were going to do and that’s how teams overcome you.

“The Pacific Islanders were a very physical team but it is these sort of games when you can really test yourself.”