Another week, another England rugby player, another police station. No charges have yet been issued following Danny Cipriani’s arrest in the early hours of Monday morning on suspicion of drink-driving but the fly-half’s latest off-field scrape could scarcely have come at a more delicate moment for Stuart Lancaster or the Rugby Football Union.
So far Cipriani has merely been bailed and asked to report back to police in early August following his involvement in a traffic accident in Chelsea at around 5.15am. The RFU is stressing it will not rush to any draconian conclusions but Lancaster will not be amused by this latest episode. Within the past three weeks Manu Tuilagi has been convicted on three counts of assault – the Leicester centre has since been handed a 56-day driving ban after being caught speeding in a separate incident – and Dylan Hartley’s suspension for a headbutt has also caused Lancaster to drop him from his World Cup squad.
Given there are still more than 100 days to go until the 2015 tournament kicks off this autumn, it is not an encouraging attrition rate. As Brian O’Driscoll wryly pointed out on Twitter on Tuesday, the law of averages suggests England can still expect to lose a couple more players through injury between now and September, regardless of how early an evening curfew Lancaster imposes when his players assemble on 22 June to prepare for the highest-profile tournament of their lives.
Regardless of whether a charge does or does not follow, Cipriani has chosen an unwise time to shine a torch back on his after-hours lifestyle. By scoring two tries and contributing handsomely to a big win over the Barbarians at Twickenham on Sunday, he had just made the management think again about the positive impact he could have at a World Cup. Now he has reminded them why they were ever so slightly reluctant to welcome him back into the fold in the first place.
The 27-year-old Cipriani, who was breath-tested by police after his black Mercedes was in a collision with a silver Toyota near Chelsea Harbour, has been released on unrestricted bail with police declining to reveal whether he was over the legal drink-drive limit. Given this is the same man who was once excluded from an England squad under Brian Ashton for picking up tickets from a nightclub in the early hours when he was sober, however, Cipriani will be uncomfortably aware there is a precedent for the RFU to consider even if the police decide to take no further action.
The issue once again is trust. In the goldfish-bowl environment of a home World Cup Lancaster needs to be confident all his players will display sound off-field judgment at all times. Having seen at first hand how things unravelled in New Zealand in 2011, the head coach has made a point of emphasising the culture had to change. On recent evidence it has to be concluded the healing process still has some way to go.
Which is why Cipriani, even if innocent of nothing worse than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is battling to feature at a World Cup he has set his heart on making. He was already struggling to make the final 31, with George Ford and Owen Farrell set to be England’s two first-choice fly-halves, and the versatility of Exeter’s Henry Slade and Saracens’ Alex Goode is not helping his cause either.
In mitigation there are rugby players up and down the country currently enjoying later nights than usual at the conclusion of a long season. The modern player puts in so many weeks of conditioning work that, when allowed to step off the treadmill in the narrow window before pre-season training begins, the temptation to let off steam is considerable.
Over the last 12 months Cipriani’s dedication to the job of steering Sale around the field has been exemplary but, ominously for him, Lancaster has taken a consistently hard line on off-field distractions.
There are even suggestions David Strettle may have compromised his World Cup chances by signing for Clermont Auvergne, even though he is not relocating to France from Saracens until after the World Cup. The Test future of Cipriani, who turned down a move to the Top 14 to enhance his international prospects, is now firmly back in the hands of others.
