A glance down the England team-sheet for Cardiff will offer Wales supporters some wry amusement. There is a Dylan and a Tom, not to mention an Owen, a Hughes and a “JJ”. Given the visitors are also coached by a man named Jones this may be the moment for the two nations to acknowledge they have more in common than they care to admit.
The modern, white-shirted “JJ”, however, has proved to be a thorn in scarlet flesh before. Two years ago it was Jonathan Joseph who transformed the game, his footwork and acceleration earning the second-half try that left the Wales defence flat-footed and silenced the initial Friday night frenzy inside the Millennium Stadium.
It just happened to be the then 23‑year‑old’s first try for England and, unsurprisingly, he still thinks about it regularly. “That game is one that sticks in my mind,” he says. “It was an unbelievable atmosphere even on the bus ride in. It all started there. The way we played, executed and controlled the game I thought was exceptional, especially playing down there. I thought we did really well.”
England will be pursuing virtually the same blueprint this time. If they can succeed in reducing the home fans to virtual silence in the Principality Stadium there will be no need to check the scoreboard. “The aim for us is to start the game very well and hopefully not have to wait until the second half for the crowd to quieten down,” says Joseph, conscious England were collectively slow out of the blocks against France. “We didn’t start the last game too well. It’s something we’ve been working on and will look to do this weekend.”
Joseph is the kind of player who responds positively to the bright lights and greasepaint of a big occasion. Curiously he has not scored a Premiership try for Bath in more than 20 months – the break-up of his bountiful midfield partnership with Kyle Eastmond is clearly one factor – but it is a different story with England. Eight of his 13 international tries have come in the last 12 months, including two apiece against Fiji and Australia in the autumn, and he has been a constant in England’s remarkable 15-Test winning sequence.
If he feels under pressure for his place from the electric Elliot Daly he certainly does not show it. A talented tennis player – he was once the top-ranked junior in Derbyshire, and then Berkshire, after his family relocated south – he has long had the self-assurance of the natural sportsman. His chemical engineer father, Ivan, originally from the Grenadines, played 11 games for Northampton in the mid-1980s and famously wrote down “professional rugby player” in his son’s baby book as a potential ambition before he was out of his cot.
Anyone named Jonathan Byron Alexander Joseph was probably always destined to be some kind of showman although the gliding centre has admitted in the past to a slightly more casual attitude in his earlier England days: “When I got my first cap in 2012, I probably wasn’t really in the right head space. I apply myself at a much higher level than I did back then.”
Now when he removes his customary headphones before a game he is far more switched on. “I like the atmosphere, it spurs me on and gets me going. I think it does that to a lot of the other boys too.” Two years ago, rather than being intimidated by the Cardiff son et lumière, he found it inspiring: “I thought it was amazing. The adrenaline was going and all the boys were real pumped up for it. I think it works for both teams.”
Nevertheless, none of England’s players visited the ground the day before the game and Joseph is not planning a leisurely pre-game stroll through the Cardiff streets: “Yeah, we get a little bit of stick on the way in but it’s rugby, it’s competitive. Passionate fans will do whatever they can to give their team a little edge.”
In the end it will boil down to how deeply England’s winning habit has become ingrained. Joseph can play a little Beethoven on the piano but, should Wales get ahead early, this could be the night the lid comes down on English fingers.
“It’s just a case as a team of making sure we’re all on the same page,” counters their 2015 match-winner. “The older leaders have spoken to people who might not have played there before to give them a heads up but, apart from that, we’re just preparing for another game.”
Those last half-dozen words are easy to say in advance, less so once the anthems start.
