England ultimately emerged comfortable winners of the Pool B clash, with two tries each for Shontayne Hape and Chris Ashton and others from Delon Armitage and Manu Tuilagi.
However, for the second game in a row they had a man sin-binned after repeated team indiscipline as they gave away 11 first-half penalties. Luckily for England, the Georgians failed to cash in on their chances because of wayward goalkicking.
“It wasn’t good enough and if we are happy with those standards we’ll go home early,” Johnson, with his brow at its most furrowed, told reporters.
“The guys need to be a bit more patient and trust our defense. Some of it was sloppiness, a bit of rustiness maybe and the guys were a bit over-eager at times, but they have to learn they will be penalized.
“We need to be a bit sharper and we are under no illusions that we need to get better.”
Johnson has spent most of his three-and-a-half-year tenure as England boss trying to bang home the message that rugby remains a simple sport at heart yet it seems he is still not getting through.
“I’m just a bit annoyed,” he said. “There were lots of chances for us to do better. When we executed simply we made it easy but we just over-complicated it and the higher level you go the simpler it is.”
Johnson said England should have taken the ball into contact more and tried to build from there.
“We don’t have to try to force that miracle pass, pressure would have given us those opportunities,” he added. “When we ran well they didn’t really got hold of us and maybe the ball was available for unloading and boys were throwing things they shouldn’t have done.
“If ever we needed an understanding about what things are about at this level then watching Ireland v Australia last night was it — it’s a simple game.”
Captain Lewis Moody, playing his first match of the tournament after recovering from a knee injury, concurred.
“We wanted to play some rugby today, we endeavored to do that, but we turned the ball over too much,” he said.
“It was a frustrating game but the Georgians fronted up, we were just a bit naive at ruck-time in the first half.
“We had so much potential to score but we forced it too much when we should have held on to it.”
Georgia coach Richie Dixon was delighted with his team’s effort after a disappointing opening defeat against Scotland.
“We certainly gained a lot of respect from the team we played against and from those watching and if we had converted those kicks it would have been a lot closer,” said the Scot after watching Merab Kvirikashvili miss five of his six penalty attempts.
“The contact area is something we have been concentrating on and I think England were surprised by our ferocity.
“We froze in attack really against Scotland so we’ve certainly demonstrated we can attack as well as defend but we have to learn to turn territory and pressure into points.
“We put an awful lot in today and didn’t get much out.”
