Lee Beard believes that his unbeaten light heavyweight, Troy Jones, is ready to emerge from the shadows when he fights Ezra Taylor this weekend.

Beard himself likes to go about his business quietly but, over the years, the Manchester-based trainer has worked with a long list of quality operators.

Fighters like former IBF super featherweight champion, Argenis Mendez, former two-weight world champion, Joan Guzman, and Jack Catterall have all benefited from his love of detail and ability to create traps.

This weekend, Birmingham-born Jones (12-0, 6 KOs), gets the opportunity to break out against the highly rated Taylor, (11-0, 8 KOs).

The fight takes place on the undercard of the super featherweight fight between Anthony Cacace and Leigh Wood. DAZN will stream the event from Nottingham.

The strong, determined Jones has a more unique, unorthodox style than the technicians Beard has worked with in the past but he is being equipped with the same weapons. Jones is becoming more and more adept at knowing how and why to use them.

“He's 26 years old and he's been really busy over the last three or four years,” Beard told The Ring.

“He's had a lot of experience. He's built his way up, sparring with Cubans, Americans, Russians. He's built up well in the fights that he's had as well. He’s a big ticket seller, he has been on a big show so this is like a progression for him.”

Last August, Jones won the English 175lb title by outfighting the tough Leon Willings.

That win earned him a spot on his first major show. Matched with Michael Stephenson on the undercard of the flyweight clash between Galal Yafai and Sunny Edwards last November, Jones readily admits that he allowed the occasion to take up too much of his attention.

From public workouts to press conferences, a modern fight week is full of new experiences for a fighter making their first appearance on a big show.

Their focus is stretched throughout the build-up and is given a final pressure test when their team leaves them and they are left alone with their thoughts as they wait for the floor manager to give them their cue to finally walk to the ring.

Desperate to make a good impression in front of his home fans, it was understandable that Jones forced and smothered his work during the early rounds but rather than worrying and panicking and making things worse, he put his trust in Beard’s instructions, made the correct adjustments and pulled away over the second half of the fight.

Stephenson lasted the course but Jones became more and more comfortable as the night wore on.

The fight with the heavy handed Taylor represents a step up both in level of opposition and attention but Beard believes that it is one Jones is more than ready for.

“Troy's a quick learner so he would have learned from those thought processes before the Stephenson fight,” he said.

“In this camp now, he’s a lot more focused, composed. He’s not actually talking about knocking anybody out. He’s focused on a big fight on a great show on a big platform. He’s learned from the last fight with Stephenson. He knows he’s got to be fully switched on.

“When do you actually then take that next step? I think this is it. What I've noticed with Troy is the bigger the step - as long as it's the right step - you get more from him.

“He's a very, very confident person within himself anyway. He's not scared of anyone that he's going to get in the ring with. It doesn't matter who it would be, he would be there to fight.”

Beard isn’t the type of coach who likes a quick fix. Slowly but surely, fighters who work under him begin to understand the way Beard wants them to think and work. Once they have started to instinctively react in the ways he wants them to, Beard adds another layer to their game and the method continues until they become clever, well rounded fighters.

Jones was just starting the process when he and Taylor shared three sparring sessions in Dubai.

As novice professionals competing in the same weight class, there will have been a competitive edge to the work Jones and Taylor put in but, for Beard and Jones, the rounds were mainly a chance to solidify their working relationship rather than working on ways to beat Taylor.

Nonetheless, they took enough from the sessions to leap at the opportunity when the chance to fight Taylor this weekend was presented to them.

“When Troy was sparring with Ezra he had been with me about six months, so we were working on the first stage,” Beard remembered.

“We weren’t specifically trying to win spars or any of that type of stuff. I was working on certain things, whether it be defence, a jab or controlling the range of a fight or spar.

“How to navigate rounds. When to put the foot down, when to come off the gas. When to squeeze someone’s space, but do it more in a mental way as opposed to a physical way. So we were constantly working on things.

“It wasn’t like we were trying to go out there and win the spar but he always looked very good.”