England captain Lewis Moody is playing the opening round of the World Cup against Argentina after failing to recover from a knee injury time Saturday's match in Dunedin.
The Moody 33 years suffered a recurrence of the ligament injury in England first World Cup warm-up match against Wales at Twickenham on August 6.
Moody injured his knee playing for Bath in January and missed all the Six Nations, which means he played only 62 minutes of test rugby this year.
"Lewis will not play this weekend," said Johnson. "Not ready to go today. We had hoped that he would be able to start training, but not quite there.
"Doctors and the guys take them through a fitness training progress, and we all hoped to be ready to go today, but it is just a little short."
England captain Mike Tindall, Moody absence through the Six Nations and their last two warm-up games against Wales and Ireland away from the Aviva Stadium.
James Haskell has been an impressive Opensides Six Nations and is the obvious choice to start at number seven shirt against Argentina.
"We are very pleased with the other guys, so it's a very simple decision to keep him another week," said Johnson. "It is to open the game, which is hopefully a long tournament, so you can force these things sometimes and it can go both ways."
Johnson is still confident Moody will always play an important role in the tournament.
"He was running today, so it is not a million miles away," said Johnson.
PA Sport
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