By Adam Hollingworth
Martin Johnson's resignation follows one of British sport's most ignominious tours down under, but surprisingly it does not come close to being the worst.
There have been two more cringingly bad rugby tours and that Ashes whitewash.
Rightly known as the tour from hell, England sent a B-team down under in 1998 and Clive Woodward’s lilywhites were slaughtered by the Wallabies 76-0.
The red rose wilted in the shadow of the Silver Fern, the no-hopers were thrashed 64-22 at Carisbrook before suffering a 40-10 loss at Eden Park.
Although the careers of Matt Dawson and Jonny Wilkinson were forged in the fiery depths of the 1998 tour.
Five years later Wilko exacted revenge by winning the Rugby World Cup in Australia.
Maybe Sir Clive should have stopped there but two years on he returned to the Southern Hemisphere with a Lions team stacked with English World Cup winners, minders, lawyers and even Tony Blair's former spin doctor Alistair Campbell.
But even a spin doctor could not explain away a three-nil blackwash.
The lions went down with a whimper, and like any badly trained pet left a nasty stain on Woodward’s coaching career.
For the British sports fan, the pain of losing to the ABs would be tempered that summer with the return of the Ashes.
But not for long as Duncan Fletchers poms ventured down under in the summer of 2005/2006.
Marcus Trescothick pulled out of Australia before a bowl was balled. Steve Harmison should have pulled out after that first ball.
It went downhill from there; the hapless poms contrived to lose the un-losable Adelaide test before getting whitewashed in Sydney.
A fitting send off for Warne, McGrath and Langer, and Fletcher’s tenure didn't last much longer.
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