If they're good enough, they're Anglo-Saxon enough, albeit on the technicality of residence in the case of Shontayne Hape and Riki Flutey. Hooker Dylan Hartley has an English mother.

Never mind their ethnicity. Johnson ought to be more concerned about Hape's sporting background than his birth certificate. Only Jason Robinson has successfully blazed a trail from league to union, albeit there have been stints in the England team of differing worth for Henry Paul and Lesley Vainikolo, both former league players as well as Kiwis, and Andy Farrell.

Few sportsmen resemble the essence of "Britishness" better than Ricky Hatton, but his courageous return to the ring has been greeted by the media with all the concern of a mother watching her son play a game of Russian roulette. Would Ali have been such a great had he accepted the general opinion that he was too beyond his best to beat George Foreman? Jeff Powell shows his concern for Hatton in The Daily Mail...

Although he won a couple of interim bouts against lesser fighters between those knockouts [to Mayweather and Pacquiao], Hatton has to be regarded as having peaked during his heroic world championship victory over Kostya Tszyu in Manchester four and a half years ago.

Since then, there have been increasing signs of the toll taken by his habit of ballooning in size between fights. Even now — despite admitting: ‘I’m a bit heavier than usual after being out so long,’ — he is taking a family holiday in Australia’s
lager land before his next debilitating effort to shake off the ‘Ricky Fatton’ poundage piled on by his boozing and binge-eating.

Hatton’s return will galvanise a boxing public bitterly disappointed by the postponement — at best until September — of the March 13 Pacquiao-Mayweather megafight because of a nasty dispute over drug testing. But at what cost?

Meanwhile, writing in The Telegraph, Jason Burt clearly forgets that Liverpool enjoyed their best season for years thanks to Rafa Benitez last season, losing only twice in the entire campaign, questioning whether The Reds had progressed at all since his arrival.

Maybe it's time for all at Liverpool just to step back and examine what Benitez has achieved. Take away that incredible first year, the unbelievable comeback in Istanbul and have they really, truly progressed?

Benitez is very good at railing against his detractors, against the perceived injustices he has faced and very good at playing the sensitive victim. This morning he needs to look in the mirror and accept where the responsibility lies. Accept who it was who sold Xabi Alonso, having alienated him, and has overseen five years of frantic, inconsistent team-building which has delivered very little.

Benitez needs to earn his money – rather than complain about a shortage of cash. Liverpool need new owners, for sure, but maybe, also, a new manager.