Does booze culture give us athletes we deserve?
Danny Cipriani may consider his wrists golden but you wouldn’t give tuppence for his brain, or sense of timing. in a week when a high-profile English sportsman was in the dock over the ramifications of a drunken night out, Cipriani ended up charged and convicted in Jersey, the result of an equally ill-advised late session.
The difference being that while Ben Stokes endured an 11-month ‘ordeal’ — the words of his legal team — before being found not guilty of affray, Cipriani’s offence was over and done, found guilty and punishment passed, within 48 hours. Whether the same is now true of his international career remains to be seen.
Eddie Jones, the England coach, had always seemed a reluctant enthusiast for his talents. it took the form of Cipriani’s life to finally get him back into the England team on the tour of South africa, and even then Jones spent as much time spelling out the reasons he could be booked on the first plane home from Johannesburg, as he did finding motivations for putting him in the XV. When Cipriani finally started, and justified his inclusion, in the final Test, it seemed as if he might at last have won Jones around. and now, if we’re not back to square one, Cipriani has certainly found a rather large snake to slither down. Jones, the pragmatist, has no need to rule in or out just yet, and can let Cipriani’s club, Gloucester, take the heat.
Equally, however, as a pragmatist, he knows a team cannot be built around an individual with such scant sense of responsibility. Cipriani’s behaviour in Jersey, including the manhandling of a female police officer, showed a catastrophic lack of awareness. not just of his professional status, but of the mood of the time. The Stokes case, and events on the recent ashes tour, have thrown the drinking culture that pervades elements of English sport into sharp relief. Too many of the bodies that somehow style themselves above the sweaty world of football still have players who treat a tour as a glorified jolly boys’ outing. Harlequins had visited Jersey days before Gloucester, and a staff member fell out of a second-floor hotel window at roughly 4am. There are no further details, other than Harlequins had played a pre-season friendly earlier in the day, but it does seem rather unfortunate. ‘if he’s on the front page for any reason other than rugby, he’s not with us,’ Jones once said of Cipriani ominously, but it remains to be seen if he is true to his word.
if being on the front page deprived England coaches of their players, there would be some very big holes in teams right now. Stokes may have beaten the charge of affray, but little about his behaviour while on England duty in Bristol last year impressed. That his teammates should then find trouble in australia — and return to one particular bar in perth that had already been the scene of a notorious incident — was almost as dispiriting. Joe root, England’s captain, is now preparing a new code of conduct but how often do the most basic rules and ethics have to be reinforced?
How many times does Cipriani have to be reminded about the precariousness of his position? There are senior players inside England’s rugby team who did not welcome him back, and Jones will know that. if he was looking for an excuse to leave him out, there it was on the front page.
Cipriani may have looked contrite outside court in Jersey, but then he should. aggressive physical contact with a police officer is deeply reprehensible and Sir Clive Woodward — who has been the most high profile of Cipriani’s champions — regards that as a deal-breaker. He would not have him in the dressing room after this, and he will not be alone.
new Zealand’s all Blacks also have a code of conduct but it can be summed up largely by a crude, two-word phrase. no d***heads. players with giant egos, players without a sense of responsibility, players likely to bring the game or team into disrepute, players likely to let the side down: d***heads. ‘rule number one is don’t be a d***head,’ said one exasperated England coach, after another off-field debacle, ‘and they keep f****** breaking rule number f****** one.’
They can get to you like that, sometimes, sports people. Jones must have read the more lurid details of Cipriani’s behaviour in astonishment; the ECB were horrified by the CCTV of Stokes fighting in the street.
Then again, ECB officials were equally appalled by the behaviour in the crowd at recent one-day internationals, and go to Twickenham and see pint after pint sloshing about in the seats and long into the night after matches. This country has a troubling relationship with alcohol; and maybe it gets the athletes it deserves.