DANNY HAS HEAD FOR HEIGHTS
DANNY CIPRIANI is determined to have a clear head when returns to Twickenham today for Wasps’ Premiership final against Exeter.
The last time he was there for the season’s climax was in 2008 as Wasps’ player of the year and the most exciting talent in English rugby.
But he was only a spectator, hobbling on crutches after an horrific ankle dislocation.
“My ankle was throbbing throughout the whole 80 minutes of the game and I was watching while I was painkillered off my head,” he said. ® “We’d had a pretty good year so it was nice to round it off with a win.
“The year before that we had won the Heineken Cup. I just thought every year was going to be like that really. But it’s been a long time since then.”
By that he means spells in Australia and Sale before returning to the club at the start of the season.
Cipriani added: “I had kind of agreed at another club.
“I hadn’t signed anything but I had made up my mind. Then I met Dai (Young), and he said he wanted me to come in and lead a team.
“I looked at the squad here and thought there was no way we couldn’t finish in the top four and push on for further honours. That is what has happened so I’m pretty happy.”
Wasps will be without the injured Kurtley Beale and have been warned that Exeter will not be caught in the Twickenham headlights again today.
England wing Jack Nowell admits the Chiefs froze 12 months ago against Saracens in their first Premiership final. But he believes the low-key response to getting their revenge over the champions in last weekend’s semi-final showed that they mean business this time.
Nowell said: “Last year we were over the moon to be there. Maybe we let the stadium and the fact that we were in our first Premiership final get the better of us.
“You can see this season how much it has meant to us to get back up there again.
“We know what Wasps are going to bring, but at the end of the day it is about us.”