TAULUPE Faletau will give Wales a major boost for their Six Nations showdown against England with defence coach Shaun Edwards stating his desire for the hosts to match Eddie Jones’ ‘finishers’ in Cardiff.

The former Dragons number eight has been out of action since suffering a knee injury playing for Bath at Wasps on Christmas Eve.

Faletau made just one autumn appearance because of the same problem, off the bench against South Africa, and is likely to be an impact sub versus the Six Nations champions.

The Lions ace, a try scorer in the loss at Twickenham last year, missed the Championship opener against Italy but is likely to replace James King as the back-up to the starting trio of Sam Warburton, Justin Tipuric and Ross Moriarty.

Faletau is a shoo-in for Wales when fully fit but Edwards believes the 26-year-old can add oomph off the bench.

“There was a good example for England last weekend when Ben Te’o came on,” said the rugby league legend.

“People comment sometimes that you finish with your strongest team, you don’t start with it. There’s a thought for that in world rugby at the moment because a lot of big games are decided in the last 20 minutes.”

“Sometimes your best attacking players are better on the pitch in the last 20 minutes sometimes, that’s when most tries are scored,” he continued.

“Think about us last summer when we were winning on 55, 60 minutes in New Zealand. They unloaded the bench, which was a little bit of a higher standard than ours at the time because of injuries, and that was when the games were won and lost.”

Wales name their team at 11am tomorrow with question marks over a trio of key figures.

Lock Luke Charteris is still struggling with a hand injury, meaning Dragons forward Cory Hill could keep his spot on the bench as back-up to captain Alun Wyn Jones and Jake Ball.

Fly-half Dan Biggar (ribs) and wing George North (dead leg) are still being monitored with Sam Davies and Alex Cuthbert prime candidates to deputise.

England travel to Cardiff on a 15-game winning streak and Edwards is looking for his side to continue their miserly form against a potent attack.

“England are the form team in world rugby at the moment and are on a fantastic unbeaten run,” said Edwards. “They averaged 33 points a game in 2016, so they are a formidable attacking outfit.

“Having said that, we’ve had the best defence at the last two World Cups and if we get back to that sort of form, which I think we are slowly doing, we are there to give them a game.

“England have go-forward and power runners that get over the advantage line, then a 9-10-12 (Ben Youngs-George Ford-Owen Farrell) who are very, very intelligent rugby players and get the ball to the guys with the running ability.

“Any team would miss Mako and Billy Vunipola, they are fantastic players, but one thing England have definitely got is strength in depth.

“I remember a couple of years ago that they came here with a lot of injuries and somebody said that James Haskell was playing. I was ‘oh no’ and he was the best player on the pitch.

“They have strength in depth but fortunately for us they can only play 15.”