Iain Balshaw and Lesley Vainikolo, regular fixtures in deposed head coach Brian Ashton’s Six Nations teams, look set to be the biggest casualties when Martin Johnson announces his first England squad on Tuesday. The final decisions will be taken at a meeting tomorrow, after a full inventory of the mental and physical health of all candidates has been taken by the medical staff, but in the deliberations that have taken place so far over selection for the tour to New Zealand Balshaw and Vainikolo have barely featured.

The 32-man party will also include a new captain, as Johnson has accepted that Phil Vickery, appointed by Ashton in January 2007, is unlikely to travel. Steve Borthwick and Mike Tindall head the list to replace Vickery, with Johnson likely to put his search for a longer-term candidate on hold in favour of a battle-hardened, experienced skipper.

Johnson’s first squad will contain a mixture of the old and new. Johnson and his senior coaches, John Wells (forwards) and Mike Ford (defence), are anxious to move England forward. Dylan Hartley, Northampton’s young hooker, will go on his first senior England tour and, with Harry Ellis taking the summer off for further rehabilitation on a long-standing knee problem, Harlequins scrum-half Danny Care is in the mix with Paul Hodgson and Peter Richards as the back-up behind Richard Wigglesworth. Sale’s Ben Foden is another who will be a beneficiary of the new regime. Foden and Harlequins’ Mike Brown will slug it out for the vacant full-back position.

Yet in some ways the anointment of youth is the least of Johnson’s problems. One of his biggest decisions is who, of the senior contingent, deserves a break after an international season which was prefaced by a World Cup training camp in June, and which kicked off properly with England’s first warm-up match against Wales in August. England are committed to sending the strongest possible squad to New Zealand, but Johnson is unlikely to ask both Simon Shaw and Ben Kay to make the journey for Tests in Auckland and Christchurch.

The England manager is aware that next season is equally hectic, beginning with four internationals on successive Saturdays in November and ending with the British and Irish Lions third Test against South Africa on July 4. Johnson is anxious to manage his elder statesmen in such a way that they remain in serious consideration for the Lions tour.

Apart from the second row, where there is a serious shortage of candidates, Johnson and his coaches are fairly happy with what they have seen in the Premiership and both European competitions. There is, though, some concern over the depth of front-row talent behind Andrew Sheridan and Tim Payne on the loose-head, and Vickery and Matt Stevens on the tight-head. With Vickery resting up, Bristol’s Jason Hobson could come into the reckoning for the tour.

Some fine appearances for Bath have confirmed Lee Mears as first-choice hooker, but the feedback from Dorian West, the former England hooker now coaching at Northampton, over Hartley is encouraging. Johnson has identified a disturbing lack of physicality among England’s front five, and Hartley is seen as a player who could address that deficit in a year of two.