Without doubt the Bay were in rugby doldrums that year, winning only three games from 13 after experimenting with 36 players.
The skill levels were poor, he says, admitting he was too raw to lead a side let alone conduct training sessions under "The Fuhrer", Bay selector/coach the late Colin Le Quesne.
"We then went out and performed against a team with some outstanding members in it," he says rattling off names such as Welsh lock Rhys Williams, Irishman Syd Millar, halfback Jackie Jeeps, second five-eighths Jeffrey Butterfield, Peter Jackson on one wing and Tony O'Reilly on the other, and fullback David Hewitt who were coming off a series win over South Africa in 1955 and again drawing with the Springboks before arriving here.
The mood in the Magpies' changing room was one of apprehension on a typical gorgeous sunbathed winter's day on June 20.
"It was real bizarre to play. The conditions were great and they never stopped scoring tries against us."
A laughing Johnson says his point of contention was the Magpies could have done it much better even though the culture wasn't too flashy.
"I think it was partly because of the whole systemic approach they had to rugby which became an attitudinal thing as well so they didn't expect to do very well against some of these very good teams."
That is not to say Johnson had given up hope on his troops. He was carrying a stress fracture on his hip that season, which hindered his running, going on to miss several games but after surgery didn't have any issues.
His recollection of what he said to inspire his men in the changing sheds is vague now but it did help that the year before he had played for Waikato under the tutelage of Bill Crawby who was master in working with the emotions of players.
He likens Crawby to Auckland mentor Billy Graham.
"I learned exponentially and tried to use some of that approach myself to stimulate the guys but, you know, you've got to have some substance behind it to make it work."
Le Quesne, it was to dawn on him much later, was a visionary in many aspects.
"I only came to understand that after I had finished playing. He took tremendous interest, was a good player himself for North Island and other provinces."
Le Quesne's brusque manner may often have overshadowed his attributes.
Towards the end of the memorable Ranfurly Shield era in the late 1960s Johnson started having leg problems so Le Quesne persuaded him to retire.
"I now know why. He was losing his assistant coach for the next year so he wanted me as his assistant," he says, revealing that's how meticulous The Fuhrer was in planning.
Johnson says Le Quesne should have been a New Zealand selector because that was his forte and markedly different from coaching.
Max Loughlin and Neil Thimbleby, both of Taupo, who played the Lions three times, and Hepa Paewai, of Dannevirke, were among his notable selections.
Le Quesne had approached Johnson to inform him he had a guy he wanted for halfback after incumbent Barry Neale had retired.
Johnson thought it was someone new in town but, as it turned out, Le Quesne was keen on a "young boy" playing at the base of the scrum at Te Aute College.
"I went to see him play at Te Aute and Hepa was just outstanding so that's an ability very few coaches have."
He says Le Quesne was limited in coaching because the structure for mentoring wasn't prevalent in those days.
Johnson considers himself fortunate to have had some exposure to coaching elements in Waikato.
"Leadership today is a combined effort. If you do that and do that well then it's much more superior to one man trying to dictate or be authoritarian."
In 1960, the Magpies' constitution started evolving to reveal some character on the foundation of a regimented fitness programme.
Winger Bryan Wilson, who played on the wing against the Lions in 1959, was a former New Zealand 100-yard track sprinter so he was commissioned to conduct research on each player to establish aerobic and anaerobic requirements.
The upshot of that was a gymnasium set up out of the dog trials shed in Taradale where they did hill training before strength work.
"We were way ahead of our time over other provinces."
He says 1961 was the turning point when they lost the Log of Wood challenge 5-3 to Auckland but came away with the reaffirmation the Magpies were on the right track.
In 1963, the Bay men beat England 22-5. That year they drew 3-all in another shield challenge memorable for the way the Magpies had planned the game from the opening whistle to the final shrill of the pea.
"We had looked at everything, from the short kick-off to those long one.
It wasn't until 1966 when Johnson had another shot at exorcising some of his demons against the Lions, but he was no longer a skipper after the late Kel Tremain, a flanker who had arrived from Canterbury, had assumed the mantle of captaincy when Johnson had transferred to Auckland in 1964.
Johnson again scored the only try for his side, taking the ball 15m from the line with three defenders hanging off him, to tie the game 11-all with the tourists at McLean Park.
The referee, he believes, had made a huge call in that game.
"I know that sounds dreadful but the joke 'we was robbed' was true," he says, recalling winger Bill Davis had dotted down unopposed for a try but Irish centre Mike Gibson, lying on the ground, started hollering about how he was obstructed.
"That was absolute rubbish," he says, revealing the Lions missed a penalty kick from the ensuing ref's call from almost the halfway mark for the stalemate.
Without the overt burden of leadership, Johnson relished playing more.
"I enjoyed it [under Tremain]. It was good to play for Hawke's Bay because it meant something to me," he says, revealing he, Tremain, Le Quesne and John Buxton picked the starting XV and reserves and what way to approach the game.
The 40-point flogging still fresh seven years later, Le Quesne had sent Johnson to Hamilton to watch the Lions play Waikato as well as take notes for the Ranfurly Shield challenge. He missed the game against Manawatu.
That year the Magpies beat Waikato 6-0 for the Log before defending it convincingly through to 1968 against Waikato (35-9), Wairarapa (27-6), Bush (36-6), East Coast (31-0), Poverty Bay (21-5), Marlborough (30-3) and Counties (18-3).
Money aside, he raves about the conditions of the grounds these days that look unruffled even after steady rain.
"Today's players have so many benefits so it's great to watch them."
Literature on Johnson puts him in the mould of some of the most mobile No 8s going around, having scored 38 first-class tries in his career.
"I'd love to be playing right now," he says with a grin, when asked if he was born a few generations too early because he may have been a natural fit for the contemporary Super Rugby.
In this era, he would have opted for openside flanker. He played No 8 because his father did and had impressed on him the freedom to move either side at the back of scrums.
He had acquired a taste of openside flanker when playing for Auckland, under captain/blindside flanker Bob Graham, in 1964 when he developed an appetite for scoring tries.
His father, the late Bill Johnson, and grandfather the late Joe Johnson, both also born in Napier, represented the Magpies.
Bill had captained the original Napier Technical Old Boys rugby team.
In 1962 the three national selectors had informed Tom Johnson he was on track to become an All Black.
But the retired EIT lecturer, who had graduated from Ardmore Teachers' College as a 17-year-old, never realised that dream despite making the New Zealand Possibles team, replacing injured Vic Yates, at No 8 but reportedly was deemed unlucky to have missed the tour to Australia with the ABs.
He suspects he did a "foolish thing" in a previous North Island game, scoring a try but they lost the game in the dying seconds from a kick-intercept try.
Earlier in the game, South Island first five-eighth Earle Kirton had made a break from a lineout and broken through so he said to his captain, Wilson Whineray, to give Waka Nathan a go at the end of the lineout as he was struggling to find traction from wearing the wrong sprigs on a fine day that had started raining soon after kick-off.
Whineray, he suspects, misinterpreted that as Johnson chickening out and that had been relayed to the All Blacks' wise men.
"I found out years later that he had scrubbed me. I was very disappointed when I found that out but, any how, that's life. There are plenty of hard-luck stories," he says with a laugh.
Add to that his first of four sons, Michael, who wife Judy had just given birth to was having complications.
"I didn't know from one day to another if he was going to survive so I wasn't ready for the game but really pleased to get it."
Michael, 53, now lives in Auckland. Blair, 50, is in Wellington, Antony, 47, and Craig, 44, also live in Auckland.
For the bloke who, in 1958, had taught at Rangiruru School, a predominantly Maori roll north of Huntly, it was an "error of judgment" and an opportunity gone begging.
Looking at the Lions on tour here now, Johnson says it's unfortunate the tourists will not play in the Bay.
He is picking a "very close series" with coach Warren Gatland's men.
"Even though a lot of pundits are saying it won't be a whitewash I think it might be a 2-1 series."
That possible defeat, he thinks, will stem from the hosts' inability to kick goals.
The ABs, he says, have done remarkably well to stay in the purple patch after losing several marquee players last year but the loss to Ireland in Chicago in November kills any air of invincibility.
"It just proves no matter how good you are, on their day other sides can beat you."
Johnson, who was a national sales manager for an oil company and NZ Breweries in Wellington, is a former HBRFU chairman and went on to serve on the NZRFU executive.
The former Clive rugby coach (1971-72) started his own sport sponsorship business in Levin for five years.
His uncle Jack and great-uncle Crawford also added to the rich Magpies lineage.
"Crawford tragically died in the earthquake here. He survived four years fighting in the trenches in Europe and then got killed in the earthquake here," says Johnson who has two post-graduate masters degrees and a doctorate in management and the author of sold-out Legends in Black - New Zealand Rugby Greats On Why We Win.
