Woodward: Danny can help us win the Prem
GLOUCESTER fullback Jason Woodward is backing controversial England fly-half Danny Cipriani to fire his side to a Premiership title as he aims to enhance his own Red Rose prospects.
Cipriani, below, collected £4,000 worth of fines following a nightclub incident in Jersey. However Woodward, who toured South Africa with his new club colleague in the summer, believes the playmaker’s sumptuous skills will ensure his misdemeanours are forgotten. Woodward told The
Rugby Paper: “For the whole squad, Danny’s come in and straight away had a massive impact on our attack. Just the little finer details he puts on our game make a hell of a difference and all the boys are responding well to his style of play.
“The way he went at Wasps he put a lot of their outside backs into space, so I’m expecting big things from him this year and we’ll ensure we really get behind him now.
“The club have dealt with what’s occurred and it’s in the past now. It’s regrettable what happened, but now we’ll move on from this. I’m just looking forward to getting out there with Danny and playing good rugby, as is everyone.”
Woodward reveals how agonisingly close he came to making his Test debut in June, explaining: “In the second Test in Bloemfontein I was 24th man and did the pre-match warmups, so you can’t get much closer than that and it was a bit frustrating not to get any minutes.
“But it was great to be involved in that environment after what was a pretty good season for me and my goal this year will be to go one step further.”
With Anthony Watson (Achilles) on the longterm injured list and question marks over the full-back futures of Mike Brown and Elliot Daly, the effervescent attacking prowess of former Rebels and Hurricanes flyer Woodward looks certain to boost his England chances. The 28-year-old said: “Eddie Jones keeps his cards quite close to his chest but he’s told me to keep attacking, keep working on my work-ons and those opportunities will come. “Being 24th man was like dangling candy in front of a child – so close but so far away – but it’s given me some huge motivation to move forward and get close again.” Much will depend on Gloucester realising their potential, something Woodward believes is eminently within their gift. He explained: “When I came to the club from Bristol last season, I looked at the depth of our squad and made a pretty bold statement saying we wanted to win the Premiership – and with two games to go we were still in with a chance.
“But we fell away at the end and obviously losing the Challenge Cup final was bitterly disappointing as well.
“The promising thing was our depth as a club was tested and everyone, from one to 15 and whether they were first or third choice, proved to themselves that we can be big contenders.
“We’ve made a number of big signings in the off season and our preseason’s gone really well, so I’d have no hesitation in saying we can be title challengers again.”
With former Bath star Matt Banahan adding his considerable weight and experience to Gloucester’s back-line, Woodward expects his side to offer a huge attacking threat.
He added: “Banners is a very good man to have around the club. He’s pretty switched on.
“He makes my job a lot easier because of his intelligence and positioning ability.
“Tom Marshall’s coming back after injury and Tom Hudson stuck his hand up last year so we’ve got good options at full-back, while the rest of our back-line looks pretty solid.
“We look to have some good go-forward up front, so our expectation has to be that we can go one better this year and claim some silverware.”