Alastair Hignell column: England may have recorded more clean sweeps in the Five and Six Nations' championship than any of their rivals, but they've only managed the feat once this decade and only six times since the end of he Second World War.

Grand Slams can't be picked up at the cash-and-carry. They can't be bought by the nation with the most money, any more than they can be picked up for a song by the shrewdest bargain-hunter.

As Ireland demonstrated last season, when Brian O'Driscoll and his men recorded only the second Grand Slam in their country's history, they come weighed down with the burden of expectation as well as past disappointments.

They are won not just by the best team, but the team with the strongest nerves and the most luck. But none of those considerations has stopped the suits at Twickenham from demanding that Martin Johnson's men hit the mythical jackpot twice in the next eight years, as well as winning the Six Nations title on two other occasions and reaching the semi-finals of the next two World Cups.

A photo of Rob Andrew, the RFU's director of elite rugby appeared alongside one newspaper story detailing these targets.

But I find it hard to believe that a man who, both as a player and a coach, has seen just how difficult it is to deliver results to order, had very much input.

Andrew would have noticed for instance that, taking both history and form into account, the stated goals are expecting far too much of England in the Six Nations and nowhere near enough in the World Cup.

The national side may have won more championship titles than anyone else, but the last of their 25 titles – spread over 126 years – came in 2003 and they have only picked up eight titles since 1963.

For England to now start winning the Six Nations every other year is surely harshly unrealistic . So too is the goal set for autumn internationals and tours.

The RFU want England to win two out of every three games played against the major southern hemisphere powers and to increase the national team's win ratio to 70-80 per cent.

The current return under Martin Johnson is around 45 per cent – five victories in 11 matches. But by the same token, the requirement that England should reach the semi-finals in the next two World Cups seems a little on the soft side. England reached the final in the last two tournaments and in six competitions to date have reached three finals and one semi-final.

Especially with the 2015 tournament due to be played on home turf, England will be selling themselves short if they are happy with two last four finishes.

Even if you leave to one side any quibbles over what constitutes a realistic target you are still left wondering why the RFU – whether in the person of Rob Andrew or as part of a strategic business plan – should want to set any targets at all.

Why put Martin Johnson and his men under any more pressure than they're facing already?

It's not as if they are not trying to win every match they take part in and do not go into every match believing they can.

They wouldn't have reached the level they have unless they did so.

Setting targets won't make any difference to their motivation and reaching them or failing to reach them probably won't make any difference to perceptions of them as successes or failures.

Johnson's immediate predecessor Brian Ashton, for instance, was booted out even though he took England to a World Cup Final and a best Six Nations finish in years.

In sacking Ashton and appointing the untried Johnson, the RFU argued that it was simply a question of getting the best man for the job, and in so doing implied – in the same way that New Zealand re-appointed Graham Henry even though the All Blacks had been bundled out of a World Cup tournament they were widely expected to win – that results were not so all-important.

And the RFU obviously came to the same conclusion back in 1999, when England were dumped out of a Paris quarter-final by South Africa.

Clive Woodward had famously asked to be judged by what he did in the World Cup but the RFU wisely decided to judge him on the next rather than the last tournament – and reaped the reward as Woodward's England became World champions.

If the feat is to be repeated, faith will once again be far more important than targets.