There are a myriad of subplots heading into Friday night's match between Wales and England in Cardiff but for Jonathan Joseph his task is just as much about communication with George Ford as it is about attacking with ball in hand.

Joseph's performance against Toulouse for Bath in round five of the European Rugby Champions Cup propelled him to a new level in the public consciousness. His role in their fourth try where his deft grubber helped create the space from which he teed up Francois Louw's score was a moment of magic and it was such an instance that caused Stuart Lancaster to hail the Bath outside centre as "outstanding" on the day he handed Joseph his first Six Nations start.

Joseph has long been the coming man in English rugby. There were comparisons with Jeremy Guscott back in 2012 when he burst on to the international scene - he looked to Brian O'Driscoll and Jason Robinson for inspiration when he was younger - but after six caps for England from 2012 to 2013 he never quite found the next level while at London Irish to establish him as a mainstay in the England team.

But with six tries behind him for Bath this term and having established himself as the most deadly, fit, outside centre in the Aviva Premiership, it was a case of when and not if his England chance would come again.

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For Lancaster, he monitored the continual improvement showed by Joseph and, in part due to the ever-increasing injury list, he turned to the Bath man.

"It wasn't just one game so we assess every game and we watch every game every week and we give them a match score based on what we think is important in their position," Lancaster said of that performance in Toulouse from Joseph. "When you go down the list of the centres we have available then JJ was right at the top of that. The consistency of that performance, clearly the Toulouse performance was good but as I said at the time, Wales are a far more effective defensive side than Toulouse were on that day."

Joseph also feels his selection is more than just down to that afternoon in Toulouse. England have seen an improvement in him and he too believes he is in a better place than two years ago.

"My involvement, my understanding, my leadership qualities [have improved]. You just have to be loud. It is an area of my game that has got a load better. I think it does help the fly-halves if you have another voce outside them telling the right options and where the space is. I think that's worked very well with me and George [Ford] at Bath."

And it is that understanding with George Ford that helped make his claims for outside centre irresistible to Lancaster. When the England coach picked his Six Nations squad he was reticent to suggest they will copy the Bath blueprint and in Luther Burrell at inside centre they will go down a slightly different route than how Bath operate with Kyle Eastmond and Joseph in the centres.

Burrell's inclusion also signifies a temporary hiatus to the plan of having a kicking and playmaking inside centre with the Saints man preferred to Billy Twelvetrees, who fills that second fly-half berth, but Lancaster feels Joseph can slot into that role.

"In the backline we are looking for someone else to help out the ten as an organiser and a kicker," Lancaster said. "If you look at Jonathan Joseph's contribution to the Bath team, not necessarily his long kicking game which Mike Brown can cater for, but more his short kicking game - the little balls along the floor, his attacking kicking and also the amount of good information he passes on to George Ford in that Bath shirt.

"I asked George about that and he said he is critical due to the amount of information he passes on. We still have that person in the backline. JJ takes the role of the organiser and the second voice and Luther plays a more direct role."

Joseph is looking forward to working alongside Burrell saying there will be a "nice balance" to the centre combination while hailing Ford as a "joy to play outside of". The plaudits were returned in Joseph's direction by his Bath team-mate.

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"He's been brilliant, especially this year with his communication," Ford said of Joseph. "For a 10, in attack, he has been world-class and his defence has been brilliant as well, he leads that at the club. With JJ, he always that ability to create something out of nothing with an outside break or he off-loads with one hand, and like you saw against Toulouse, his little kick through to create that try.

"There aren't many players around who can create things like that and to play with him is massively exciting. He always wants the ball in his hands in attack, but he is also good at the things people don't see, like his kick-chase and his communication about when to kick and so on. To get the opportunity to play with him on Friday is exciting."

Much of the plan for Friday night, from an England point-of-view, revolves around game management. The 10-12-13 axis will be faced with the formidable task of trying to nullify the threat of Dan Biggar, Jamie Roberts and Jonathan Davies and they have no doubt planned for that in training this week.

Despite the need for predominantly conservative play in their own half and using field position by means of attack, there was a slight touch of mischief when Joseph was asked about always adhering to the England gameplan.

"I hope we can attack in this game like we do for Bath. We have to be smart and do it in the right areas," Joseph said. But there's no reason that with turn-over ball, if there is the opportunity, why we can't run the ball. It'll be great if we can really attack it. If the right decision is to run, we'll run. We have a mindset to play. If we have a chance to play and it is on, we'll play. We don't want to waste opportunities. We are playing the game for a reason and that's to be challenging defences."