DANNY CIPRIANI divides his time between the front and back pages of newspapers. It's rarely of his own volition. Handsome, gifted and passionately dedicated to his rugby, he occasionally loses his way in the celebrity fug that has enveloped his life.
Interest in a young man a couple of weeks shy of his 21st birthday extends way beyond the parameters of rugby. His love life, a staple of the gossip columns - Kelly Brook is his latest girlfriend - has caused him embarrassment in the past, periodically compounded by an immaturity in decision making. There are no serious misdemeanours but occasionally the complications have been self-inflicted.
He's a poster boy for Wasps and England rugby, a status that certainly imposes constraints away from the pitch - as he has learnt. In last season's Six Nations Championship he made his debut when coming on as a replacement for Mike Tindall against Wales. Due to start the next game against Scotland, he was omitted after being photographed leaving a nightclub after midnight on the day England were due to travel to Edinburgh. The prime charge would have been naiveté rather than a calculated transgression.
He subsequently demonstrated his mettle with a superb performance against Ireland, coping admirably with the pressure of being selected at outhalf ahead of Jonny Wilkinson. On May 18th, he showed a different type of courage when suffering an horrendous leg and ankle break against Bath in the Guinness Premiership semi-final: he required oxygen on the pitch and was severely distressed.
The prognosis was he wouldn't return to competitive fare until December but his conscientious application to the rehabilitation process allowed him to foreshorten that period by a remarkable six weeks. He made headlines of a different kind soon after his return when he was knocked out by team-mate Josh Lewsey in a training-ground spat.
The only apparent legacy was a contrived shadow-boxing celebration of Lewsey's try, involving Cipriani and the scorer, against Castres last week.
Cipriani's life has rarely been straightforward from the moment his parents, Jay and Anne, split when he was a baby. His father returned to Trinidad and Tobago - he's maintained contact with his son - while his mother sat that famous test The Knowledge, successfully becoming a London taxi driver to give her son a better life.
It enabled him to enrol in the fee-paying Wimbledon College Prep School, Donhead. His sporting prowess was soon evident, leading to a scholarship to The Oratory School, Reading, before he finally moved to Whitgift School in Croydon.
Cipriani proved a gifted sportsman, joining Queen's Park Rangers soccer club before being offered youth terms with Reading FC. He played schoolboy cricket for Berkshire and Oxfordshire and was invited to join Surrey but on making his way to Rosslyn Park, he discovered his real sporting passion, rugby. Although he was chosen for the Wasps academy in 2003 it wasn't until completing his studies a couple of years later he devoted himself full-time to rugby.
His standing at the London club can be gleaned from the fact he made his first-team debut at 17 in a Powergen Cup match in December, 2004. A taxi fare in his mother's cab was to have a major bearing on his rugby development.
Cipriani explained: "When I was about 15, she (Anne) was told by this man, a passenger, that I should train with Margot Wells (the wife of the former Olympic 100m champion, Allan Wells). And I said: 'Mum, I haven't got enough time'. But I wanted to add another dimension to my game and get quicker and so I ended up following her tip."
His relationship with his mother and the sacrifices she made for him underpin everything he tries to do. He explained: "My mum's been amazing because she's worked so hard to provide for me. I'm not trying to make this sound like a sob-story but she wanted me to have these opportunities.
"When I used to be in school at Wimbledon she'd leave for work before I got up and then come home and prepare my dinner at around four and then go back out again. She used to work ridiculous hours. I was around 10 at that stage and had to go to boarding school for two years.
"But she didn't send me to any old school. She sent me to Oratory, near Reading. I may have had scholarships but it's still a lot of money for a single mother to send her son to a public school where they play such good rugby, football and cricket. I love her for that."
His work ethic has allowed latent talent to blossom, the extra-curricular work with Wells a prime example. His speed has facilitated him moving between outhalf, centre and fullback but it wasn't until Wasps' stalwart and former England international Alex King left the club that Cipriani commandeered the number 10 jersey.
Pace, vision, kicking, both tactical and place, and distribution - Cipriani possesses the wherewithal to run any game. There are only the speed bumps of celebrity to check his progress.
Danny Cipriani Factfile
Club:Wasps
Position:Outhalf/fullback
Born:Nov 2nd, 1987 (Roehampton)
Height:1.84m (6ft)
Weight:90kg (14st 3lb)
Representative Honours:England U16s (captain), England U19 Sevens Commonwealth Youth Games Australia 2004, England U19s (2004-05 Six Nations and U19 World Championship; 2006 Six Nations and U19 World Championship), England Saxons (2007 Churchill Cup)
Caps:3
Points:18 (four pens, three cons)
