'Superman' Danny Cipriani no match on form for 'Invisible Man' George Ford, says Eddie Jones after England snub

Eddie Jones claimed that his reason for leaving “superman” Danny Cipriani out of his England Rugby training squad was due to the resurgence of “invisible man” George Ford, which has relegated the Gloucester fly-half to, at best, the third-choice No 10 in the country.

Having started England's most recent Test in South Africa - with his creativity setting up Jonny May’s try for the match-clinching score in the third Test dead rubber - and putting in two man-of-the-match performances this season for Gloucester, any prospect of Jones dropping Cipriani from his England squad was expected to be due to his recent conviction for common assault and resisting arrest.

Cipriani was fined £2,000 by a Jersey Magistrates’ Court last month after the late-night incident on the Channel Island - as well as Gloucester fining him the same fee - and he was also found by a Rugby Football Union disciplinary committee to have behaved with “conduct prejudicial to the interests of the game”, though no ban was handed down by either club or country.

With Jones already giving Cipriani a final warning, it was expected that any decision to axe him from the international set-up would be due to his off-field antics, but the Australian said on Thursday that it is purely his form that is behind his omission from Sunday’s three-day training camp in Bristol, leaving many scratching their heads.

Instead, Jones explained that from what he’s seen over the last three weeks, both Owen Farrell and George Ford have moved ahead of Cipriani in the pecking order for the No 10 shirt, with the former “definitely” in contention for a permanent move to fly-half after featuring largely at inside centre for England under Jones and the latter being the only man in the Premiership to have made more clean breaks than Cipriani this season, with all three players setting up three tries in as many games.

“10 is a very influential position,” Jones explained. “He’s the bus driver of the side and he’s the conductor of the side and if Danny is a better player than Owen and George he can certainly promote himself ahead of them.

“From what I’ve seen at the moment, he’s not in terms of the whole context of the team. Certainly he’s a good player and he’s done some good things but there’s areas of his game that he needs to attend to and I’ve spoken to him about that. He understands it, his club understands it and they’re going to work very hard to fix those areas.

“What I’ve learnt here [with England] is that every time you get the team together it’s like a new season, you don’t take anything from what happened before because the players change. They go back to their clubs and they either go up or they go down with their clubs. So, with the England side I find that you get very little continuation from one campaign to the next.

“So I don’t look at it like that. I look at the fact that this is a new season that we’ve got ahead, November is like one year of rugby for us. So we need to get the players who are right to play those four Tests at their best. At the moment they’re the 36 players that we’re looking at but, as I said upstairs, there are three club games for players to promote themselves or demote themselves.”

Part of Cipriani’s surprise absence has been down to how much Ford has impressed Jones. The 25-year-old lost his place in the side to Cipriani for the third Test against South Africa, but has bounced back under the guidance of interim Leicester Tigers head coach Geordan Murphy to rediscover something of his best form. Jones has been at all three of Gloucester’s matches this season to watch Cipriani be named man of the match in both the win over Northampton Saints and draw with Bath, but he believes that what Ford is doing off the ball to complement his all-round game has been more impressive than the heralded miracle passes that Cipriani has thrown in those two matches to set up tries for Gloucester.

“He’s got back to being what he’s good at and that’s taking the ball square and flat, attacking the line, looking for opportunities,” said Jones. “To me, it’s interesting ... I go and watch three club games a week and being at the game some of the quality of his [Ford’s] play is absolutely outstanding. But, it’s like he’s an invisible man. Whereas one other player throws one pass and he’s superman.

“I take selection seriously. I want to make sure that when I’m selecting, I’m selecting the best players. You can’t see that on television.

“A game of test match rugby is 100 minutes. The ball is in play 40 minutes. So if you are a No 10 you might touch the ball 15 times for one second. So you’ve only got the ball in hand for 15 seconds so what you do the other 39 minutes 45 seconds is vital and you don’t see that on television. What you do off the ball is massively influential in the game.”

Alongside Ford, Manu Tuilagi has also been busy making an impact over the early rounds of the Premiership season, and having watched the powerhouse centre score a barrelling 55m effort against Newcastle Falcons as well as another strong showing against Wasps last weekend, Jones felt that the time was right to bring him back into the England set-up for the first time in more than a year.

“I've never seen him have as much energy and acceleration since I saw him play in a video,” he added. “It seems to suggest that each week he is getting a little bit better, a little more in the game. The way Leicester are playing now affords him more opportunities in the game which will only keep improving him. He just seems to be mentally in the game.”

Having a fully fit Tuilagi back in the mix will be hugely important for Jones if he is to move Farrell to fly-half, as he already admits his options at 12 are “skinny” as it is. Tuilagi has been playing at outside centre for Leicester due to the presence of Australia international Matt Toomua at Welford Road, but while Jones is open-minded over where he can play for England, the potential move for Farrell and injury troubles for Ben Te’o leaves Jones well short of his desired three-options for each position, which in itself leaves the decision to omit Cipriani on form alone all the more baffling.