Danny Cipriani may not have been recognised by England this season but he has by his peers. The Gloucester fly-half was one of the five nominees for the Rugby Players’ Association player of the year in a list that was made up entirely of backs and topped the poll 11 years after he won the young player of the year award.
The shortlist did not include a player from Saracens, Saturday’s European Champions Cup finalists for the third season in four who are on course for a seventh Premiership final this decade. Owen Farrell is the only one of the club’s players who has been nominated in the last five seasons, residue, perhaps, of unsubstantiated suggestions – hotly disputed by the club – that they have not adhered to the salary cap regulations with fervour.
The winner was announced on Wednesday night, a few weeks before the end of the season and before the European and Premiership finals, and before Cipriani is set for a date at a ground where he has yet to taste victory. Gloucester are bound for Allianz Park in their first play-off semi-final for eight years, unless Saracens pick up five points at Worcester next week while Exeter lose at home to Northampton for the first time since 2014.
Cipriani has played at Saracens’ home on six occasions, three times for Sale, twice for Wasps, including last season’s play-off when the visitors reaped 33 of the 90 points harvested that afternoon, and once for Gloucester. The closest he came to victory was on his first visit, for Sale Sharks in November 2013.
That day he went through the card, converting his try, kicking a penalty and dropping a goal, but Sale were unable to hold on to a 13-6 interval lead. It was the only one of matches he has played there that was close, with the average score 38-18 to Saracens. If he is to make a point to the England head coach Eddie Jones, who has to weigh what he sees with squad harmony, it will be in the play-off.
Not because he will, barring injury, be up against Farrell, England’s outside-half and captain. It will be about the influence he has on the game: it was minimal in last year’s play-off because Wasps, in a sign of what was to come this season, were so overrun at forward it was as if they had one player fewer.
Gloucester have no better memories of Allianz Park than Cipriani, having not won there in the Premiership, and their last victory away to Saracens in the league was in 2008, although they drew four years later. They lost the 2011 play-off at Vicarage Road, scoring the only try of a match that was decided by four Farrell penalties.
A question that has constantly been asked of Cipriani since he made his name at Wasps in the latter half of the 2000s and was first capped by England is whether he fits in. “Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted,” said the American academic Brené Brown, whose latest book is on leadership. “Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.”
Brown’s advice is to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and embrace who you really are. Cipriani has always charted his own course, never afraid to challenge coaches or team-mates, to the point where he exasperates. Where Farrell fits the qualities Brown describes as essential in a leader – “the willingness to step up, put yourself out there and lean into courage” – Cipriani is more detached, inspiring through his ability to see clearly in the murk rather than leading the charge out of the trenches.
Gloucester have been almost the polar opposite of Saracens this decade, oscillating between highs and lows with the latter the more frequent. They have become more consistent in the two years Johan Ackermann has been in charge, if still prone to lapses, and a reason they have emerged at the top of the pack chasing Exeter and Saracens is that they improved on the road.
Cipriani has added to a side that has become more durable at forward, more resourceful when chasing a game, but some way behind Saracens who had to negotiate pot-holes on their path to the top. Gloucester are a better fit for him than Saracens would have been, a club where a kindred spirit, Gavin Henson, did not last long having quickly realised that he did not fit in and was not prepared to change to do so.
Farrell has been a one-club player and it is not difficult to see him finishing his career with Saracens. Cipriani started with Wasps and returned to them after stints with the Rebels in Melbourne and Sale before joining Gloucester last summer. His constant challenging of coaches has given him a sell-by date, but in Ackermann he has someone who encourages players to take responsibility, operating within a gameplan but not slaves to it.
Gloucester remain some way behind Saracens, but they have closed the gap since Ackermann’s arrival. Saracens, for all their failure to secure a nomination for the player of the year, and they had candidates outside their England ranks in Alex Goode, Brad Barritt and Jackson Wray, continue to set the standard.
Their Champions Cup final against Leinster at St James’ Park promises to be a cut above the Premiership, chess on grass. It is an occasion Farrell, combative and single-minded, is made for, but also one in which a slice of the unexpected, from a player like Goode, might make the difference.
A conundrum for Jones in the coming weeks is whether Cipriani would fit into England’s World Cup squad. At a time when international rugby is becoming more open and fly-halves are enjoying a renaissance, should it not be about finding a way of fitting him in? Do the likes of Cipriani and Goode really not belong in the Test arena? If there is no “i” in team, there is in winners.
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