Blood & Mud

The continuing adventures of Cipriani: International Bellend of Mystery

Occasionally promising fly-half and permanent legend in his own mind Danny Cipriani has managed to get himself into further hot water with Melbourne Rebels by defying team instructions and staying out late last week.  This is on top of the recent incident when he nicked a bottle of vodka from a bar.  

Cipriani's (increasingly dwindling) apologists will no doubt make the point that a player of his abilities must be allowed a little wiggle room in terms of discipline because to curb those mischievous instincts too much is to ruin the essence of the player as well as the man.  It's very much the same argument trotted out for the likes of George Best and more recently, Andrew Flintoff.

Of course the difference between Best and Flintoff and Cipriani is that the first two actually achieved things on their respective pitches that gave an evidence base to give them some leeway.  Cipriani has so far had one decent international match, a few decent halves in the Heineken Cup, some fleeting moments for the rebels, oh and shagged a model with perferct norks.  His behaviour smacks of Michaelangelo expecting to get away with pissing all over his boss's paintbrushes before he'd even created so much as a decent sketch of David.

Or as Stinger says to Maverick in Top Gun: "Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash"

Rugby Video: Crusaders 44 - 28 Sharks

Quite simply, this is the best rugby that Twickenham has seen for a decade.  Any fool who wants to argue that the leagues anywhere on British or Irish shores produce play as good as this needs to have a very long word with him/herself.

The attacking play had a touch of Barbarians festival about it and you could be fooled into thinking the players were treating it as a charity run out, but that was before you saw the level of physicality to go with the sublime skills and running angles.

Credit to the Sharks for responding in the second period as most teams would have gone home for their tea after that mauling in the first forty minutes.

Super 14 Video: Reds 41 - 20 Crusaders; highlights

This weekend saw the Super 14 teams completely forget that the word "defence" exists, never mind how to do it,  and rack up an aggregate points total of 1,234,452.  This game shone out like a beacon of relative sanity in the bag of monkeys of tries, mis-tackles and poor organisation.

This match was notable for two reasons; the Crusaders lost for once, and semi-mentalist and sometime burglar Quade Cooper gave a masterclass in out-half play.  Check out the Reds' opening try from 45 seconds onwards, it's an absolute blinder.

This is the first weekend I have had chance to look at the S14 and the effect of the new "tackler release" directive on the ground.  The ball is certainly coming out faster than I have seen anywhere recently, which is good; but it seems it is so quick that it is wreaking havoc in defences to such an extent that games resemble an NBA match or some overpopulated version of sevens, which is not so good.  Also, what is it with all the cross-kicks?  It's like each team's out-half is on a bonus if they do more than three in a game.

Hard to draw any conclusions after two rounds of matches obviously, but if there are many more scores like Lions 65 - 72 Chiefs, or Bulls 50 - 32 Brumbies, then the credibility of the competition will come into question.