Fans running out of patience with below-par England

A year ago England were thrashed at Twickenham by Australia, South Africa and New Zealand on successive weekends in Martin Johnson's first stint as manager and barely an eyebrow was lifted.

A year on, with precious little signs of progress, England fans are starting to lose patience.

Having lost to Australia the previous week and with the All Blacks in town next, Saturday's 16-9 victory over Argentina at least ensured no repeat of the hat-trick.

But the fans demand more and the unusual sound of booing, jeering and slow hand-clapping sent a clear message that the desperate product they had paid £70 ($116.3) to sit through was not fit for purpose.

Matt Banahan's late try secured the win after a 9-9 draw began to look inevitable in the wake of Jonny Wilkinson missing three successive second-half penalties but even the ever-pragmatic Johnson accepted that it was a below-par performance.

"The players are happy with the win but disappointed with what they did," he said.

"I think we probably deserved it (the booing). Errors really hurt us. We had far too many. At times we could have kept the ball in hand but didn't.

"We kicked poorly, we didn't chase well and they put the pressure back on us."

Johnson said he shared the fans' frustration but claimed that most of the near-80,000 in attendance had "stuck with us".

If they did, it was surely out of loyalty to a man held in the highest regard because they were certainly not enjoying the rugby.

Johnson had complained about his team kicking away good possession against Australia yet they did exactly the same from the off against a desperately inexperienced Argent-ina side.

After half an hour, with barely a passing move attempted let alone achieved, the slow hand-clapping sent a clear message that exchanging pointless up and unders was not what they had come to watch.

Argentina, together for only six days and featuring a host of debutants and amateurs, appeared to be the more cohesive team despite England being in camp for weeks.

Only as the second half wore on did England start to get on top but even then passing along the backline remained a scarce commodity.

"It ultimately comes down to finding a way to win the game which we did," Johnson said. "We have got to improve for next week. We can't produce a performance like that again. It wasn't good."

Argentina captain Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe said he expected a tougher game against Wales.

"Our defence was really, really good. I am just disappointed that from one little mistake we ended up losing the game but this is the standard we have set for ourselves now," he said.

"It will be even tougher at the Millennium Stadium. Wales will have watched this game and discovered where to attack us. They have a lot of good players, good impact players, and we have to raise our bar."

Played yesterday: Ireland vs Australia 20-20.