England v Wales: Hosts willing to thrust Sam Burgess into frontline Rugby

With defensive captain Brad Barritt also failing to impress in only his second appearance back from a long-term injury, Joseph’s potential absence could leave the door open for the likes of Sam Burgess, Owen Farrell or even Henry Slade to stake a claim for a starting berth.

Sam Warburton will lead Wales into a Rugby World Cup clash with an England side that he believes has become a completely different team in the last two years.

“The medical staff are working extremely hard to get him fit”.

The Bath centre must prove his fitness by Wednesday ahead of the team announcement the following morning, with backs coach Andy Farrell insisting he has a 50-50 chance of being given the green light.

“It’s something and nothing”. “We know the type of game that they will want to play. If he’s not fit, he won’t be [out of action] more than a week anyway”.

Farrell also revealed that No 8 Ben Morgan – who did not train on Monday – has a bang on the knee but stressed that the injury “isn’t serious at all“. I was absolutely made up for them that we could get the bonus point for them.

“We know what’s coming. We’ll do what’s right for the team”, added Farrell Sr.

But the word at England’s Pennyhill Park base is that they have been training with a heavyweight midfield trio of Farrell at No10, Barritt at 12 and, surprisingly, Burgess at 13.

But now the game is nearly upon us and it will be intriguing to see whether Gatland delivers that “team talk” to use Farrell’s terminology.

The 24-year-old sustained the knock in the hard-fought 35-11 victory over Fiji in the tournament opener on Friday and was forced to miss training on Tuesday.

All eyes will be on Kingsholm to see if Japan can repeat their stunning upset of South Africa when they face Scotland (ITV 14:30).

“We don’t just want to stop Wales playing”.

“It’s one of those games isn’t it, which everyone is unbelievably excited about”, he said.

The former dual code star went on to do a separate interview with the written press after the formal press conference, so I took the opportunity to press him on the subject.

“Everyone’s been look forward to this for years now”.

Wales opened their campaign with a 54-9 win over Uruguay. If these reports are founded, there is certainly going to be a lot of pressure on Stuart Lancaster for England to deliver a result on Saturday night.

“What will count is that England are playing in white and in the home dressing room and at Twickenham“.