Danny hype a costly distraction

THE Danny Cipriani show completely distracted Gloucester for the biggest game of their season, and for some, their lives.

They all showed their inexperience at handling must-win matches.

Gloucester could have beaten Saracens on Saturday but the way Cipriani, the players and indeed head coach Johan Ackermann prepared gave them zero chance.

Cipriani was named Premiership player of the year at an awards dinner last Wednesday and during the week he did every interview under the sun.

Instead of being 100 per cent focused on trying to beat the English and European champions, Gloucester were caught up in the Cipriani show.

The whole story this week wasn’t about SaracensGloucester, but whether Cipriani (right) would be playing for England and his battle with Owen Farrell. Deep down the players would have been annoyed by all the hype and Saracens would have used it as fuel, I’m sure.

Make no mistake, if I were the coach of New Zealand, Australia or South Africa, I would love to see Cipriani starting for England. No one — including himself — knows if he really can handle the big-match pressure but on Saturday’s evidence the answer is no.

He is a great player but reading the hype you’d think he was Jonny Wilkinson or Dan Carter.

I was also at a dinner on Wednesday with Farrell, Maro Itoje, George Kruis and Eddie Jones — the whole evening was set up for them to be in and out by 9pm. Meanwhile across town Cipriani had to stay until the end of the evening to be named player of the year, the last award of the night. I would have loved it if he, his team-mates and Ackermann had said: ‘We don’t care about awards. Nothing will get in the way of us winning on Saturday’ and just made their excuses. This potentially was the biggest game in their sporting lives. Does anyone really think they should have been at a dinner in London on the Wednesday night? Crazy. It may have annoyed organisers, sponsors and the league chiefs but big deal. What annoys me are teams who don’t turn up on a Saturday.