It would be unfair to say that I’ve been unhappy with Eddie Jones’ tenure as England head coach so far. How could you be unhappy with a man who’s won two six nations titles, a test series in Australia and has so far maintained a win rate of 76.2%? He’s obviously done very well in the job, but some of Jones’ selection choices throughout his time as head coach have left me scratching my head a bit too much. Jones has continuously left in form players like Dan Robson, Don Armand and Danny Cipriani out of his squads despite them all excelling in the Premiership, and whilst they have all at some point featured for England since 2016, it simply hasn’t been an accurate reflection of the performances that they’ve put in at club level. Under Jones, Robson has played 28 minutes of test rugby, Armand has played 23 and Cipriani has played 94. That sounds like a lot when compared to Robson and Armand but it really isn’t. And whilst I’ve been disappointed with the exclusion of Armand and Robson, the exclusion of Cipriani is something that has really bothered me.

Cipriani burst onto the scene in 2006, when he began making first team appearances for Wasps. He was so immensely different to what English fly-halves were supposed to be like at that point, with many following in Jonny Wilkinson’s footsteps. Cipriani was a running fly-half however, and was actually the fastest player in the Wasps first team squad at that point. He made his debut for England in the 2008 Six Nations, and had a couple of underwhelming performances before starting against Ireland in the final game at Twickenham. Cipriani scored 18 points in a 33-10 victory, and put on possibly the best performance by an England fly-half since Jonny Wilkinson in the 2003 Rugby World Cup final. He was unable to become a permanent member of the England squad however, as his inconsistent play and erratic behaviour eventually caught up with him. He moved to the Melbourne Rebels in 2011, where he helped the Super Rugby team win their first ever competitive match, beating the Brumbies as Cipriani scored 17 points. His erratic off-field behaviour caught up with him again however, and he eventually saw himself dropped from the team in favour of James O’Connor and Kurtley Beale.

Cipriani returned to England in 2012, signing for Sale Sharks, as he began to slowly show flashes of his former brilliance. In 4 years, he played 76 times for the Sharks, scoring 590 points. By the end of his time in Salford, Cipriani was arguably better than he had ever been before, and after joining Wasps in 2016, he was playing the best rugby of his career. Despite Jimmy Gopperth’s outstanding 2015/16 season, Cipriani came straight into the first team, moving Gopperth out to inside centre. Wasps reached the Premiership final that season, losing by 3 points to Exeter Chiefs after extra time. They reached the play-offs again the following year, this time losing to Saracens in the semi-finals. Despite Cipriani not being the first choice goal kicker for Wasps, he still managed an impressive 140 points across 51 appearances for the side up until last year. Cipriani moved to Gloucester for the 2018/19 season and guided them to the semi-finals, picking up the Premiership player of the season award along the way.

Cipriani has played just twice under Eddie Jones, both in last years tour of South Africa. He came off the bench in the second test and immediately changed England’s attack when he came on, replacing George Ford who at that point just seemed to have run out of ideas. He then started the final test, and played the entire 80 minutes as England won 25-10, setting up England’s only try with a perfectly weighted kick that Jonny May latched onto the end of. I don’t think there’s a better representation of Cipriani’s career with England than Farrell’s reaction to that kick. Farrell stops running looking fed up with Cipriani having decided to kick, only to turn round to find that it had sat up perfectly for May to touch down in the corner. That’s what England have missed a lot throughout Eddie Jones’ reign though. That ability to create something out of nothing. The majority of the time England have relied on being able to take advantage of another teams mistakes, and when there are none, that’s when they’ve really struggled. But Cipriani adds a creative spark that wins games. With one piece of skill and quick thinking he can turn a game on its head.

Owen Farrell is world class. George Ford is good at international level. Piers Francis is yet to prove himself at the top level. Danny Cipriani is world class and he’s barely had the opportunity to prove it at international level. I’m not trying to be harsh on Ford and Francis, but I would happily take Cipriani over both of them in England’s World Cup squad and go into the tournament with 30 players instead of 31. Ford and Francis are excellent players and they’ve done nothing wrong, it’s Jones’s selection policy that should be questioned here. I would happily say that Danny Cipriani is one of the most naturally talented athletes that England has ever produced. I’d put him alongside Steven Gerrard, Lennox Lewis, Kelly Holmes and Jonny Wilkinson. He really is that good, but those 4 had so much more of an opportunity to prove themselves on the world stage. It genuinely upsets me to think that we probably won’t ever see Danny Cipriani play at a world cup. He may never play in a Lions jersey either, but he has deserved both of those things so much. It’s times like these when you just have to think ‘what if?’. If he’d managed to stay out of trouble, if he was far less confrontational with coaches, and if he’d focused a little bit more when he was younger, would we be looking at an all time great of the sport at this point? Unfortunately he never got the opportunity to truly show us.