Cipriani happy with his seat on the throne at Kingsholm
DANNY CIPRIANI seems at peace.
Not with the fact that whatever he does at club level never seems to be enough for Eddie Jones, but with being the main man in a Gloucester side who finally look ready to smash the Kingsholm glass ceiling.
After storming Sandy Park last Saturday, Gloucester have the chance to complete a double over Exeter tonight which would put them in strong shape to progress to the Heineken Cup quarter-finals for the first time in 11 years.
There are many factors in Gloucester’s surge this season, not least the South African influx headed by coach Johan Ackermann and his maxim of ‘play to inspire’. But at the heart of it is English rugby’s great enigma: Cipriani.
An unpromising start to life at his third Premiership club, when he was convicted of assault on a pre-season tour to Jersey, has blossomed into a happy marriage.
The England door may have slammed shut again after a fleeting appearance in Cape Town in June, but the Cipriani highlights reel keeps whirring.
“That’s been the same story for six years though, hasn’t it? And it hasn’t got to me for six years. I will still go out and do the best I can,” said the 31-year-old.
“If you’ve got two or three players in a position and they’re all playing well, sometimes you’ve got to go on a feeling – and if you’re not on that coach’s feeling, you’ve got to accept it.
“There are times when [a coach] can turn to a player and say, ‘You’ve got to do X, Y and Z’. Then you go and do X, Y and Z. If you get picked, great, that’s him staying true to his word. And if he gives you other things to work on, you keep working on them.
“I laugh because every question always comes back to the England environment and I get why it does, but I’m just loving my time at Gloucester. I don’t sit at home worrying about it.” At previous club Wasps, he clashed with Dai Young because the director of rugby had a framework for Cipriani to operate in and, Cipriani being Cipriani, he wanted to do things his way.
The irony is that being handed the freedom by Ackermann to dictate for Gloucester this season has brought out a team-centric side that Cipriani’s critics – which include some influential would-be England team-mates – do not believe exists. “If I am driving a club, doing well and we as a group are challenging for the top – say we get out of our Champions Cup group – that will all mean a lot more to me than this self-feeling I would get for playing for England,” he says.
“That would be just me getting picked. But seeing everyone here growing and getting better, in the long run that is great to see.
“I put my energy and efforts into that and hopefully if I keep doing well other guys get picked for England too.
“If I’m just thinking, ‘Do this and get player of the month’, it becomes a little bit self-obsessed. If I just open it out then hopefully
It has been this way for years and hasn’t got to me
I take everyone with me. That’s my philosophy and I’m enjoying that mindset rather than just trying to prove people wrong.”
Excluded from the autumn Test squad, he was left looking in from the outside as England beat South Africa, Japan and Australia and came close to beating New Zealand.
“I watched a couple of them; a couple I couldn’t,” he said. “I was interested in the mentality against New Zealand because it looked like they came out and executed a plan with confidence. It was amazing to see.
“I’m trying to find out what’s been said and what they have been doing because it obviously seems like a positive environment going forward.”
Unless Owen Farrell or George Ford pick up an injury, his England days look done after just 16 caps, which is a criminal waste of a special talent.
So for Cipriani, occasions like tonight need to be savoured, and what a night under the lights it should be. In most cities it is football that has the power to lift the mood; in Gloucester it is rugby.
“You could do a movie about this place if you really broke it down. It’s pretty special,” said Cipriani. “Rugby is the main sport and there are so many people here who go to work just so they can go and watch a game of rugby at the weekend.
“It is down to us to let them walk away with something to smile and be happy about.”