Danny Cipriani plays Rugby the way it was meant to be played. An aesthetic feast for all supporters who like to marvel at sleight-of-hand, speed, cheekiness and shocking defense, which in itself has admirable cringe-worthiness. Cipriani exhibits the same qualities of the field too as his latest adventures prove.
By spending another night on the town and missing training the next day, Cipriani was rewarded with a ban from the team tour to South Africa. Cipriani once again comes up trumps. Not only does he get to miss the delights of Pretoria* (is to South Africa what Canberra is to Australia) and Bloemfontein* (think a cross between Port Kembla and Broken Hill) but he gets to spend more time in Melbourne propping up the bar in his local watering hole.
Back way back when, such behaviour from your team superstar would have been regarded as run-of-the mill. Indeed in the days before sports psychologists, to take your teammates out on the piss was a right-of-passage as younger players were initiated into the team culture and bonds of mateship were formed while urinating against the wall of the local fish-and-chip shop at 3am or making sure the winger who couldn't really handle his alcohol didn't swallow his tongue after passing out or drown in the toilet after yet another hurl.
It's not like Cipriani was beating up taxis (Jeremy Paul, Matt Dunning), kicking quokkas (Scott Fava, Matt Henjak) taking girls up to his room (Lote Tuqiri), snorting something he shouldn't be snorting (Wendell Sailor), or getting his face sliced open after a brawl in the men's room at Darling Harbour (Brendan Cannon). Indeed such average drinking and staying out late antics are the kind of thing you'd ground your 15 year-old daughter for, not a grown man who, alcoholic or not, was not breaking any laws or harming anyone but himself (though mainly only his liver).
Cipriani has made the most of his highly-paid working holiday. As he leaves these shores at the end of the season as he undoubtedly will, lets just hope that wherever he ends up his off -field talents will be as well appreciated as his on-field ones and he gets to spend the rest of his professional career in an environment in which he is happy, productive and a winner, even if that's third-grade subbies in some run-down outer suburb of some industrial city in England's midlands. Such a team would deserve Cipriani as much as he deserves them.
*The Rolling Maul has never actually been there.
By spending another night on the town and missing training the next day, Cipriani was rewarded with a ban from the team tour to South Africa. Cipriani once again comes up trumps. Not only does he get to miss the delights of Pretoria* (is to South Africa what Canberra is to Australia) and Bloemfontein* (think a cross between Port Kembla and Broken Hill) but he gets to spend more time in Melbourne propping up the bar in his local watering hole.
Back way back when, such behaviour from your team superstar would have been regarded as run-of-the mill. Indeed in the days before sports psychologists, to take your teammates out on the piss was a right-of-passage as younger players were initiated into the team culture and bonds of mateship were formed while urinating against the wall of the local fish-and-chip shop at 3am or making sure the winger who couldn't really handle his alcohol didn't swallow his tongue after passing out or drown in the toilet after yet another hurl.
It's not like Cipriani was beating up taxis (Jeremy Paul, Matt Dunning), kicking quokkas (Scott Fava, Matt Henjak) taking girls up to his room (Lote Tuqiri), snorting something he shouldn't be snorting (Wendell Sailor), or getting his face sliced open after a brawl in the men's room at Darling Harbour (Brendan Cannon). Indeed such average drinking and staying out late antics are the kind of thing you'd ground your 15 year-old daughter for, not a grown man who, alcoholic or not, was not breaking any laws or harming anyone but himself (though mainly only his liver).
Cipriani has made the most of his highly-paid working holiday. As he leaves these shores at the end of the season as he undoubtedly will, lets just hope that wherever he ends up his off -field talents will be as well appreciated as his on-field ones and he gets to spend the rest of his professional career in an environment in which he is happy, productive and a winner, even if that's third-grade subbies in some run-down outer suburb of some industrial city in England's midlands. Such a team would deserve Cipriani as much as he deserves them.
*The Rolling Maul has never actually been there.
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