Regrets: Former England manager Martin Johnson.

England legend Martin Johnson has finally broken his silence on the team’s World Cup embarrassments off the field in New Zealand, saying he lamented the way “rugby got dragged through the mud”.

Under Johnson’s command as coach, England’s 2011 campaign lurched from one disaster to another including: drunken players involved in a dwarf-throwing competition in a Queenstown bar, Mike Tindall being photographed with an ex-girlfriend, inappropriate comments being made to a female hotel worker, and Manu Tuilagi jumping off a ferry into Auckland’s harbour.

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Johnson, who is a sponsor’s ambassador for next year’s World Cup in Britain, was questioned over the last tournament as he did the media rounds in Britain on Thursday.

Johnson resigned in the wake of the public relations disaster that was further complicated by England’s disappointing quarter-final exit and he clearly has major regrets.

He said the biggest frustration was that the incidents happened despite warnings and the knowledge that his team would be under the microscope off the pitch.

“The disappointing thing is that it’s something we fell into even though we knew it was there,” Johnson said in a report in the Daily Mail, while other British media outlets carried similar stories.

“We warned the players about it and you think you’ve covered it off, when maybe you haven’t covered it off. Maybe you have to say it every day.

“The difficult thing is that it gets perceived as something that it wasn’t really.

“But if enough people say it is something, then everyone believes that is what it was. You’re fighting a difficult battle.

“I’m not saying that things didn’t happen, but I’m saying the perception is that that was the only thing that happened.

“That became the story rather than the rugby and that’s what gets remembered.”

Johnson believed the Queenstown shenanigans had been exaggerated.

“The worst thing was the way the game got dragged through the mud.

“It wasn’t actually a true reflection of those people and what we were about, but you’re fighting a tidal wave almost at that point because everyone ‘knows’ what’s happened because they’ve read about it.

“People start telling me what it was like when I was there…..that’s the battle you have to win.

“That was my mistake, you have to win that battle as well. It’s almost like a sales job.

“You see some organisations that are perceived a certain way publicly when actually they’re not like that – good and bad because it goes both ways.'”

Johnson, one of England’s greatest players and the man who captained their 2003 World Cup triumph in Australia, suggested that campaign also had incidents but they were lost in the glory of victory.

“In 2003 once you’ve won the World Cup, everything is portrayed as being great and a perfect working machine,” Johnson said.

“But of course it wasn’t – we were all human beings, we all made mistakes, had our frailties and did similar things that the boys did in 2011.

“It just didn’t get to that level and didn’t get recorded. And then you win, so everything is all right.”

The 2011 campaign had also been blighted by lock Courtney Lawes being banned for two matches on a striking charge and kicking coach Dave Alred and fitness specialist Paul Stridgeon being suspended for switching the ball Jonny Wilkinson was due to kick against Romania without asking the permission of referee.

It all added up to a forgettable campaign and one England will look to rectify on home soil when they host next year’s tournament.

“Looking back at it, of course I would have done things differently. We can all do that.

“You do what you think is right at the time, that’s all you can do. We could all say we’d go back and change things.”