Gloucester is less a king’s home for Danny Cipriani and more a pretender’s bolthole. The fly-half is being released by Wasps at the end of the season but instead of making an expected lucrative move to France, he is taking a pay-cut to put himself in contention for next year’s World Cup after his international career was revived last week.
Eddie Jones had ignored Cipriani for more than two years, with the England coach not seeing him as a starter ahead of George Ford and Owen Farrell and not wanting to risk souring the mood in the squad by harbouring a perceived recalcitrant tackle bag holder.
He used to tire of questions about Cipriani when they were raised during his first six months in charge, but a grand slam and a 3-0 series victory in Australia in 2016 subdued interest in one of rugby’s mavericks.
Cipriani’s call-up last week was his first by England since 2015. There was a belief then that he had been recalled to show why he had been overlooked for so long, but his cameo in defeat in Paris in a friendly just before the squad for the World Cup was announced meant his omission did not go unquestioned.
Jones was last week asked whether he had ever dealt with a player who was surrounded by so much hype despite winning only 14 caps in 10 years. “Not that I can recall,” he replied. “You guys [the media] create the hype; you love it and you are obsessed by it. I can see the headline now: Danny Cipriani starting 10 for the World Cup. Do you want me to write it for you then we can cut out all these questions?”
By joining Gloucester, Cipriani is looking to make up for lost time and salvage an international career that in 2008 looked destined to be a long one. He never settled down, leaving Wasps for the Rebels in Melbourne and international exile after falling out with the then England management, returning to Sale before rejoining Wasps, who after two seasons decided not to renew his contract at the end of the season.
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Cipriani has a reputation for being difficult, of questioning his coaches incessantly. One coach said earlier this season he had never seen a more naturally talented fly-half but had also not dealt with a player who was so high-maintenance. Asked to explain, he said that Cipriani would challenge coaches throughout a training session rather than pick his moment, to the point where his fellow players would urge him to shut up. It may explain his short stays at each club he has been involved with, an asset on the field who did not fit in, but whose fault is that?
Does that comes down to Cipriani or the game rugby union has become? Is there no place in it for someone who is not cowed by authority? Is the relationship between coach(es) and player(s) that of schoolteacher and pupil or lecturer and student? How tight is the rein? Has it become a game only for conformists?
Jones has not called on Cipriani to satisfy himself that he had been right to ignore him until now. England’s attack needs rebooting and at the end of the Six Nations Jones dropped Ford for only the second time (the other occasion, the first Test in Australia in 2016, saw him summoned from the bench after less than 30 minutes).
Jones pondered aloud last week whether Ford is given enough licence at Leicester to trust his instinct, the quality he wants most in his fly-half. Cipriani has long played what is in front of him, making him an ideal fit for Wasps, who are at their most dangerous from turnover possession, and also for Gloucester whose coach, Johan Ackermann, encourages his players to back their judgment.
He would not have fitted in so comfortably in Jones’s England for the first two years and a Six Nations where play was more structured, and Ford was encouraged to lie flat and take the ball to the line. Jones said one reason he had omitted Cipriani was the fly-half’s tendency to run laterally, but that is a hallmark of 10s through the ages.
Phil Bennett was a prime example but as he made his way across a field defenders knew he possessed the ability to sidestep in a flash and that if they fanned out expecting a pass, he would be away. Yes modern defences are different but what England have missed from Ford in the last 18 months is the running threat Farrell provides for Saracens when the opportunity is there.
Jones knows England have to speed up their game, from delivery at the breakdown to decision-making and passing. They need to be sharper and more reactive. Which is where Cipriani comes in: if he needs England to ensure his career does not have an anti-climactic end, England need the difference he provides as the game becomes less structured.
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How will Jones respond to his methods being questioned? Cipriani fell out with the managements of the two other England regimes he was involved in: first in 2009 when after a reported disagreement with the attack coach Brian Smith at a training camp in Portugal he was left out of the squad, hastening his move to Australia, and in 2015 when the Rugby Football Union confirmed he had had a disagreement (“robust conversation”) with the skills coach Mike Catt in training. And he was floored by Josh Lewsey during a Wasps session in 2008.
Cipriani is unlikely to change, and why should he? As the game becomes faster and, generally, more open, players who can wing it have an increasing value. Jones has armed himself with an experienced eye from the outside and the talk will not be one-way. Nor should it be but Cipriani also has to listen. He spoke to the media for 30 minutes on Tuesday, relaxed, self-deprecating at times, and good humoured.
And assured. Others have reached a conclusion Cipriani had drawn long ago but it is not ability that has reduced his flow of caps to a trickle, never mind questions about his defence. It is others’ opinion of his attitude, not aptitude, that has held him back. It would not have mattered in the amateur era when the game was more for players and having called on him, Jones’s man-management will determine whether the outsider gets in the side and, as his talent warrants, influences Test rugby.
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