Cipriani is set for a return to action a full two months ahead of schedule © Getty Images

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Players/Officials: Danny Cipriani

Tournaments/Tours: Guinness Premiership

Teams: England | Wasps

The unique qualities which earned Martin Johnson the top job in English rugby were hewn over 20 years in the brutal and unforgiving environment of the Leicester training ground.

Unsurprisingly, star-gazing was not one of them. Johnson is as earthed as they come. But with the season now firmly under way and autumn internationals looming, Johnson may just wish the Tigers had set some time aside for crystal ball gazing.

The reason? One Danny Cipriani. For some purpose not yet fully explained, Johnson named his 32-man elite squad in July - over a month before any player passed, kicked or dropped a ball in anger and three months ahead of the first Test against the Pacific Islands.

Cipriani was understandably left out of the senior party on the basis that he was recovering from an horrific ankle injury and would be lucky to be playing by December. Except, the Wasps prodigy is lining up a return to action possibly as early as next week. Ah. Problem. If Cipriani does feature against Bath he will have a maximum of six games before Johnson takes charge of his first international. Can England really go into battle in the autumn without their latest boy wonder in the ranks if he is fit and firing again for Wasps?

The answer clearly is no, even with Jonny Wilkinson making an impressive start to the new season. But under the agreement between the Rugby Football Union and Premier Rugby, Johnson cannot select from outside his elite squad unless one of his chosen few becomes injured.

The chances are someone will drop out - but there is something rather unedifying about the thought of Johnson keeping his fingers crossed that one of his fringe squad members breaks a toe-nail. It is also a rather bizarre state of affairs that the England coach could have to wait on injuries to be able to name the best XV in the country. How do those who start the season with a bang get rewarded?

Fly-half is not Johnson's only potential problem. The squad includes two front-line full-back options in the recalled Josh Lewsey and the itinerant Mathew Tait. Three weeks into the new season, Lewsey is woefully out of form. He had a direct hand in two of Wasps' three straight defeats and has been shifted to the wing for this weekend's game.

Johnson's crystal ball - had he been able to consult it - would have told him that Gloucester's Olly Morgan is the form full-back nearly a month into the campaign. Up at Sale, Tait is laying roots in the position after a career spent flitting around the back line and he would seem the obvious selection for England this autumn.

But if Tait dons the white 15 jersey then who would start at outside centre, a position many believe to be his natural home? Johnson's options are Jamie Noon, Dan Hipkiss, James Simpson-Daniel or Riki Flutey.

The first two have hardly set the world alight this season, the third is playing on the wing at Gloucester and Flutey is a playmaker first and last. So what is Johnson to do? He has never been a man for what-ifs but how Johnson must wish that Jason Robinson was still available for England.

As Johnson was gasping for breath during the Help for Heroes match at Twickenham, 'Billy Whizz' lit up HQ as if he had never been away.