Why it was right to put the brakes on Cipriani

How apt that Danny

Cipriani once had an

assignation with a

'reality TV girl' who

turned out to have

started life as a Mr Darren

Pratt. The lady's original

surname describes perfectly

how English rugby's rising

star now looks and feels.

Cipriani should have been trotting

out at Murrayfield this afternoon for

a Calcutta Cup match that could

put England in a position to win the

Six Nations Championship.

Supporters were desperate to see him

take his place in the same XV as

Jonny Wilkinson, whose No 10 jersey

he looks certain to inherit. But

instead the most famous ticket

courier in London is heading to High

Wycombe tomorrow to play for

Wasps. In future, he might feel that

mates wanting tickets should make

the effort to come to him, rather

than the mountain going to

Mohammed at such a cost.

Shame for England, shame for us,

shame for him, yet the righteous

indignation heaped on England

coach Brian Ashton by just about

everyone at Wasps cannot pass

unchallenged. Sport abounds with

cases of human comets having the

party before they have clinched the

prize: Jenson Button in motor-racing,

say, or Gavin Henson across the

Welsh border in Cipriani's own sport.

To turn professional and isotonic, rugby union had to grapple its own

carousing instincts. The tension

between cavorting and austerity is

still apparent.

Cipriani's error was of a different

sort. He exudes the self-assurance

and social confidence of the supergifted,

Ashton doubtless spotted the

common disconnect between

actions and consequences when his

young gun was photographed coming

out of a nightclub following his

10-minute, non-alcoholic ticket

drop-off.

With schoolmasterly precision, he

elected to administer a shock right

away rather than having to deal with

a larger manifestation of the same

naivety further down the line.

The road to wisdom runs through

stupidity, for all of us, especially

those tipped to be the new Jonny,

and Cipriani now knows what it is to

become public property. 'If my ego

takes over, the career's over,' he said

a while back. Smart guy. Ego didn't

appear to be the culprit outside

No 50 Dover Street in Mayfair on

Thursday morning. Nor was booze,

or an amorous nature. The problem

is cultural. In all cases — Lewis

Hamilton, Andy Murray —

celebrity's long black limousine pulls

up outside the house, and the starlet

must decide whether to climb in,

how far to travel, and where.

Ashton under siege: England's coach has been slated after axing Cipriani

Whether to go on rubbish TV

shows, whether to sell exclusive

interviews to newspapers, whether

to chase endorsement contracts,

whether to sign-up with 'management

agencies', who, despite all the fancy talk about 'long-term positioning',

only want to sign deals and

take their 15 per cent. Most, and

sometimes all, of this corrodes

talent by increments. It's a racing

certainty that we are going to see

more and more meteoric sporting

lives, more burn-outs, more riseand-

fall memoirs as lives pass from

the fast to the bus lane.

Cipriani's social history suggests a

certain kid-in-a-sweet-shop eagerness

to consume the fresh fruit of

youth, health and fame, which may

reflect the sacrifices his mother

made in becoming a cabbie to pay

the bills. Convention dictates that

the recipients of parental devotion

go round saying how lucky and humbled

they are to be given a chance to

play for England. But others just

want the milk and money. Now.

Look at it through Ashton's eyes.

He knew his 20-year-old prodigy had

dated one of the Cheeky Girls. He

knew about the Larissa Summers/

Darren Pratt News of the

World expose. He knew Cipriani had

auditioned to be a kind of male

escort, on MTV. Any warning signs

there? Not in a moral sense. No: it's

Ashton's job to make sure Cipriani

remains a rugby player. He's there to

protect his talent and build a winning

England team.

The resentful buzzing of Wasps

around Ashton's head rendered it

too easy to see the coach's preemptive

strike as draconian (rugby

is a sport, famously, in which you get

your retaliation in first).

Now Ian McGeechan, Shaun Edwards and

Lawrence Dallaglio have had their

say, let's consider what message

Ashton might have conveyed had he

deemed it a mere peccadillo for a

newly-promoted 20-year-old to be

out on the town instead of resting.

It would have been easier for him

to go through the 'Look here,

Danny' routine and leave him in the

team, but he took the harder, toughlove

route. Even the most sympathetic

of Ashton's players would

agree that Cipriani's late-night

courier dash disregarded the needs

of the team.

Full marks to The Guardian for

digging out Simon Shaw's observation

after the Larissa Summers

sting, which was manna for clubhouse

comics: 'As a result of the latest

revelations, Danny, or to give him

his new name “Danny Cipriani Who

Slept With A Man”, was responsible

for the biggest turnout ever for a

Wasps recovery session on a Sunday

after a match.'

If he's as good as they say he is,

he'll be laughing about all of this five

years from now.

Late-night Haye looks to future

A 2am start on the still emerging

Setanta is not

the ideal showcase for

the biggest all-British

fight since Benn-Eubank

or Bruno-Lewis, but

there's no doubting the

entertainment value of

Enzo Maccarinelli v

David Haye at London's

O2 Arena in the early

hours of Sunday.

'The Battle of Britain' is

being billed as a knockdown,

drag-out

barnburner between

the world's two best

cruiserweights. Both

fighters combine power

and vulnerability. Haye

climbed off a canvas in

Paris to conquer the

world No 1 in the 14st 4lb

division — France's Jean

Marc Mormeck — while

Maccarinelli has also

been on the floor in a

29-fight career that has

produced 28 wins, 21 by

knockout.

British fighters are

advancing on all fronts,

but it remains rare for

two to meet in a ring.

The obvious

disadvantages in ceding

ground to a domestic

rival tend to outweigh

the tremendous boxoffice

numbers these

Brit-on-Brit tussles

generate. Some 40,000

swarmed to Old Trafford

to watch Benn take on

Eubank and the O2

expect to shift all 18,000

tickets for tonight's

painfully late rumble:

timed to appeal to

American TV.

Thursday's shenanigans

at the final press

conference and a

second row about the

timing of last night's

weigh-in (Haye says he

was contracted to

mount the scales at 4pm,

not at the rescheduled

hour of 7pm) generated

plenty of last-minute

rancour.

Observing Haye's noshow

at Thursday's

media briefing,

Maccarinelli's trainer

Enzo Calzaghe said:

'Nervous ain't the word.

He's petrified.'

Meanwhile Calzaghe's

gladiator was dealing

with a succinct inquiry

from an old-country

journalist: 'Enzo, Italian

stallion or Welshman?'

she asked. Maccarineli

chose the former.

Haye said: 'His people

are getting desperate.

They're worried

because they realise I'm

in the best shape of my

life. They've been

hearing from the gyms

that big world ranked

heavyweights have been

getting smashed to

pieces.'

The winner has a future

in that marquee weight

division, to which Haye

was heading before

tonight's bout was

unexpectedly agreed.

Maccarinelli's best hope

is to use his jab and

ramrod right. In a brawl,

Haye's knockout skills

will prevail. The call is

Haye, within six rounds.

The home truth

FOR 'English clubs' read

clubs with English postal

addresses'. Only eight of

the 33 players who

started for Manchester

United, Arsenal and

Chelsea in this week's

Champions League ties

were born in this country.

We've been here before,

of course, but that

doesn't lessen the shock.

Less than 25 per cent of

the three victorious

teams were English — and

that ratio will fall even

lower when Liverpool

take a 2-0 lead to Inter

Milan. The suspicion is

that English clubs are

swarming the quarterfinal

stage precisely

because they utilise so

much foreign talent.

A strong indigenous core

binds Chelsea and United.

John Terry, Frank

Lampard and Joe and

Ashley Cole started at

Stamford Bridge. Wes

Brown, Rio Ferdinand,

Michael Carrick and

Wayne Rooney took to

the Old Trafford pitch.

Theo Walcott's 11 minutes

were the sole English

contribution to Arsenal's

storming win. England 8,

Rest of the World 25.

Personally, I don't care

whether John Bull gets a

go if Arsenal can

humiliate AC Milan in

what was surely one of

the great exhibitions of

passing by an English club

in Europe. Let's not hide,

though, from the

implications for the

England team.