Will Greenwood England need magician Cipriani

With his ability to read the game, the mercurial fly-half creates magic moments for Gloucester

Danny Cipriani is a hype player. But the hype misses the point. Cipriani’s magic moments are built on hard work and simplicity that make miracle passes easy to deliver.

I mean it. Easy. If you are in control of your core, your pace, and you have a clear view of the defenders facing you and attackers with you, then the risk has been taken out of it. It becomes just another pass. An accurate one, granted, but one where the external negative factors have been managed and all but removed.

So how do Cipriani and Gloucester load the dice in their favour? Cipriani has basically cut, copied and pasted the moves that worked so well for him at Wasps. Same Cathedral, different choir.

His main move, let’s call it Plan A, is when the scrum-half makes a long pass to his 12, Billy Twelvetrees, who is flat on the gain line. The 13, Henry Trinder, attacks the space outside and runs a line tight to his fellow centre.

Cipriani floats round the back, gets the ball back from Twelvetrees and chooses his option. If space opens, Cipriani can run. If a defender closes the space outside Trinder, normally the defensive openside wing, Cipriani pops the ball up close to his blindside wing to pick off the stray defender.

If everyone rushes in, Cipriani can use his full-back, Jason Woodward, or go across everyone to his openside wing.

It is a system and pattern that works for Cipriani. However, it is not perfect and there are plenty of teams, the All Blacks included, that prefer to keep the ball in front of everyone and not use blockers/ decoys.

So, what is it about this pattern and Cipriani that works so well? First, he has team-mates who are prepared to run aggressive lines and carry hard for him at 12 and 13, which buys him time in wider channels when he gets the ball back.

Twelvetrees is playing magnificently, delivering aggressive, hard, inside-shoulder running. He is attacking defenders on their inside shoulders, keeping them focused on him and not allowing them to hunt down the wider Gloucester players.

Twelvetrees, supported by his pal Trinder, are happy to carry/ truck up the ball into traffic. Team-mates know that this will keep the opposition honest and when the defenders start sitting back on their heels worrying about the Twelvetrees carry – which should rightly cause them concern – it is the perfect time for Cipriani to get the ball delivered to him from Twelvetrees behind Trinder.

When it works, it is simple and provides options. But, there is a balance that needs to be achieved. Cipriani and Gloucester must show their willingness to carry through Twelvetrees and Trinder early on in a match, or Cipriani will get swamped by defenders guessing where the ball will go.

Against Northampton, Dan Biggar read the play and knew Twelvetrees was not intent on running and was going to pass. Biggar flew out of the line and clattered Twelvetrees. Play finished. Against Bristol, Gloucester and Cipriani were probably too keen to put on a show at home and went with the Cipriani option too early too often. Men were waiting.

Cipriani must also defer to Twelvetrees at times, allowing him to become the distributor. This will keep the defence guessing and build trust between Gloucester’s 10 and 12, showing it is not just a one-way relationship.

This system also allows him to be lightning fast and incredibly slow all at the same time. The speed comes from his ability to look up and see the game develop, adjusting his attacking plans in a split second. This fluidity of decision-making can be taught, and hard hours of training can turn good players into very good players. But for some people it happens a split second more quickly than for others. Cipriani is one of those people.

Watch him on the field and he is always scanning, assessing the defensive set-up. He can spot things as they develop and this gives him an edge. The slowness comes from how he looks to exploit any mismatches or gaps.

As the fly-half, you sit in behind and out of harm’s way, allowing the play to happen in front of you and slowly find yourself going around the corner, hitting the pace and zip at the last minute. It is electric when it comes together and what makes it work is that Cipriani is talking to Twelvetrees the whole time. What he says is irrelevant because players need to gauge how far their team-mates are from them; all they need is noise.

Cipriani only begins to move outside of his No12 as Twelvetrees passes the ball. It is a close controlled pass, easy to do in traffic, and he is passing to space, not a man. By passing to space, the 10 can pick up the flight of the ball and either accelerate onto it, or take it and be in control if the defence are flying around the corner. This is where Cipriani has unbelievable patience. He sits, he waits. He allows the 12 to be in control, to run the play on his terms, giving his 12 the confidence to be more aggressive on the gain line in the knowledge that he will not be exposed. For the defenders, it creates multiple problems.

Cipriani is by no means perfect right now. He still tends to tackle high and can force the play with a kick or a pass that has limited chance of success. At the same time, he is not the only fly-half putting in eye-catching performances in the Premiership.

But there are short periods in some players’ lives, when it looks as if the world is happening in slow motion. For Cipriani, his natural ability to read defences is being supported by a simple attacking system and team-mates willing to do the hard graft. Keep that going and the hype will be justified. It cannot be for just rugby reasons that Danny Cipriani is not training with England.