I DON’T SIT AT HOME WORRYING ABOUT ENGLAND
IT WAS groundhog day for Danny Cipriani — fresh questions about his hopes of an England recall after being overlooked for selection yet again, despite widespread acclaim for his club form.
This season, the sorcerer-playmaker is performing his magic tricks on behalf of Gloucester. But after a Test comeback during the tour of South Africa in June, Cipriani finds himself out of the England picture once more. All the plaudits are minor consolations when what he really wants are more caps.
Tonight, the 31-year- old has another chance to enhance his case, in a Heineken Champions Cup tie against Exeter at kingsholm which could go a long way to propelling Gloucester towards the quarter-finals.
Cipriani will set about inspiring his team, whether or not it has any impact on his personal ambitions.
He has heard it all before so often that he laughed when the question came. ‘Do you feel as if the door is still open for you to play for England again?’
The reply was suitably honest. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘ Maybe. Maybe. I hope so. You’ve just got to keep playing and putting yourself in the best position.
‘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.’
When pushed on the issue, he admitted that perhaps his face just doesn’t fit.
‘If I’m ever a coach and 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,’ he said. ‘It’s not like England had a bad autumn. I thought some of the rugby they played was excellent.
‘ They put Australia to the sword. So you’ve just got to accept it. I get it and I guess it’s nice the question is still being asked because I am playing half-decent, so I’ll keep trying to play half-decent.’
Owen Farrell and George Ford remain the favoured No 10s in the national set-up. Cipriani may have regained that cherished shirt briefly in Cape Town last summer, but he knows his prospects of regaining a foothold in the national squad before next year’s World Cup are in grave doubt. Time is running out.
Asked if he is no longer letting the England situation get to him as he did in the past, Cipriani said: ‘It’s been the same story for six years, hasn’t it? And it hasn’t got to me for six years. I will still go out and do the best I can.
‘Hopefully Gloucester are getting the best version of me and in return getting the best out of me. I feel like I’m putting the best version of me out there.’
The West Country club backed their new recruit after his preseason altercation in Jersey which led to a court conviction for common assault and resisting arrest.
Cipriani has repaid their support with compelling performances and a commitment to club and community.
‘If I am driving a club, playing well for Gloucester, while seeing other players getting better 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 said.
‘That’s my philosophy and I’m enjoying that mindset rather than just trying to prove people wrong.’
Cipriani knows what it means to so many fervent followers in Gloucester. ‘Rugby is the main sport in this town,’ he said.
‘I think there are so many people here who go to work just so they can go and watch a game of rugby at the weekend.
‘When you walk out after a game there are so many people waiting outside the stadium because the town loves it. It’s pretty special.’ All BlACkS coach Steve Hansen will step down after next year’s World Cup in Japan. Hansen, 59, has been involved with the side since 2004 — first as assistant to Graham Henry and then as head coach after the 2011 World Cup. New Zealand won the 2015 tournament.