Danny Cipriani scoring against France
Sale flyhalf Danny Cipriani will be left out of England’s 31-man squad for the Rugby World Cup.
The 27-year-old impressed off the bench in the defeat by France last weekend, but has not done enough to be included in Stuart Lancaster’s final party.
Owen Farrell and George Ford are set to be named as the 2 flyhalves, with Mike Brown and Alex Goode as the fullbacks, leaving no place for Cipriani.
The squad will be confirmed on Thursday at 14:45 SA Time (13:45 BST, 12:45 GMT).
The tournament, held in England and Wales, gets under way on 18 September.
Before the official announcement, Cipriani thanked his fans for support, although he did not confirm whether or not he had made the final squad.
“Can’t tell you how much the support means to me,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
“We all go through our journey in life and learn lessons. I know I’ve made mistakes some criticised rightly or wrongly. Just a quick thanks to all the nice messages. Really appreciate it.”
In response to a comment asking if he knew whether he was in the squad, Cipriani added: “Won’t find out till this evening / tomorrow morning. Just a message to say thank you for the support.”
bbc
Western Province would have done well if they were able to get Cipriani I think as it seems their fans are concerned about flyhalf. Ideally though they should be using the Currie Cup to bring the next set of players within their squad through but Cipriani could work as an ‘interim measure’, a really good player who would stand out in the Currie Cup. Unfortunately though this will not happen, certainly not at the moment as he is on bail until mid November pending further investigations following a car crash, as far as I know he has not been charged with anything at moment. Plus he will possibly be on the World Cup standby list depending on how/if Lancaster wants to utilize Henry Slade.
@ Bullscot:
Problem with Danny has never been his talent, but has always been the “bbb” (bad boy bullshit” that he gets up to.
He reminds me of my generation of English yobs that created havoc wherever we went as youngsters.
It seems to be almost endemic in NZ and Aus as well lately.
Personally I think he is the most talented of all of England’s stand off options and brings a massive “x factor” into their game.
Probably too “off the rails” for the “old farts” at Twickers though.
Didn’t he already play for the Force or some Aussie team in SR?
Think his most memorable achievement in playing SR was stealing a bottle of vodka one night
2 @ Scrumdown:
Hi Scrumdown yes he does have a history of being a bad boy and one that has often been in the limelight for the wrong reasons, interestingly when I did a search on him a multitude of images came up but very few rugby ones, mostly celebrity type ones, and he is waiting to hear what will happen after he was involved in car crash. But it seems as if he is trying to be good so hopefully for him he has turned the corner, he certainly has played well in the last while so maybe he is focussing more on his rugby. Agree with you that in top form he could be one of the best flyhalfs around.
@ nortie:
Was with the Rebels for a while.
Scrumdown wrote:
Ahh, yes, thanks.
Didn’t do much for them if I recall.
SR is a different beast
3 @ nortie:
Hi nortie yes he was over in Aus for a while but didn’t see his games there, not sure whether he played as well as he can when he was with the Rebels a few years ago. He was with them for 2 seasons and at the time of leaving was their leading points scorer I think, but he was also suspended by them for indiscipline maybe the incident you refer to.
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