Martin Johnson's immediate future should be decided in a rapid fashion at Twickenham on Tuesday - compared to the last marathon effort anyway.

The original Rugby Football Union meeting on February 21 took over 10 hours, with the England skipper eventually receiving a 21-day ban in the early hours.

Most of the arguments surrounded the right of the RFU to further punish Johnson for his punch on Saracens hooker Robbie Russell during the Zurich Premiership match at Vicarage Road last month.

Johnson was dismissed to the sin-bin by referee Dave Pearson following the intervention of a touch-judge, and Leicester do not believe the RFU can effectively penalise their skipper twice.

The factor will again form the basis of Leicester's battle to quash the ban, which now covers Premiership matches with Bath and Gloucester, plus England's Lloyds TSB Six Nations encounter with Wales.

Their decision to appeal against the original verdict caused a huge controversy, as it effectively freed the England skipper to play in Saturday's crunch clash with France in Paris.

England lost anyway, so Johnson will now attend today's hearing knowing yet another chance of leading a team to the Grand Slam has disappeared.

By taking his case to appeal, Johnson has left himself open to an increased penalty, although neither side anticipate any change in sentence should the hearing uphold the original decision.

The irony of the whole sorry saga is that having freed Johnson to play against France by lodging the appeal, Leicester refused to play their captain in the crunch local derby with Northampton on February 23 because they could have been accused of manipulating the appeals process to strengthen their own squad for a game in which their resources were significantly depleted.

In the event, Leicester won anyway to strengthen their position at the top of the table.

But if Johnson must serve the full length of the ban, that Northampton game will not be counted because technically, the player served just one day of his suspension before the appeal kicked in.