Give Danny Cipriani a chance like the ECB with Stokes, Vickery urges

By Gary Fitzgerald
Phil Vickery has sent a heartfelt message to Eddie Jones “not to kick Danny Cipriani out of the park for good”.
The former England captain and prop hopes the head coach will, like the cricket selectors, show Cipriani the same support as Ben Stokes has received since his court case for a drunken street brawl.
Stokes was cleared of causing an affray and instantly selected for the current Test with India.
Cipriani pleaded guilty and was fined £2,000 for assault and resisting arrest in Jersey.
The 30-year-old’s international future is back on a knife-edge with the RFU charging him with improper conduct and Jones deciding what to do about a player who has had so many off-the-field problems but who had just forced his way back in to his World Cup plans.
An emotional Vickery believes the player he once helped develop during their playing days with Wasps and then England, deserves to be given another chance.
Vickery said: “What Danny has done is not acceptable. He’s done wrong and he admitted it. He has paid his fine.
“Putting that aside I have been watching news clips of someone (Stokes) chasing someone else around a street in Bristol, and knocking them out. I’ve heard no apology and no-one seems to be guilty of anything!
“Yes, Danny has history but you can’t keep hitting him with things he did five or six years ago or more. Since then he has done an awful lot of good.

“The way he has knuckled down and worked hard to rebuild his game at Sale and then Wasps again, to get another England opportunity, has been outstanding.
“I know lots of other sports people who make mistakes. As a rugby player and human being he’s in a much better place than he was six or seven years ago. I don’t think this one incident is enough for Eddie Jones to say that’s the end of Danny Cipriani’s international rugby career.
“Danny has been playing brilliantly for the last two or three seasons and Eddie has not picked him so I don’t think he will need a lot of excuses not to pick him again. But as an England fan who wants to see our game grow and be excited by it, I want to see Danny on a rugby field.
“I remember him joining Wasps as a kid and seeing him develop into a wonderful player. We won the European Cup together. I was captain of England when he won his first England cap.
“I recall watching him and thinking ‘wow what a gifted, talented guy this is…this kid has the world at his feet!’
“Saying all that, Danny is no longer a kid. He has to sit down and think seriously about what he must do from now on and about what he wants to be and achieve for the rest of his playing career.”