Rugby Union / Ralph Ellis / 03 October 2008 / Leave a comment

Ralph Ellis says the time is right for England's freshest talent to come through and looks at some of the other upcoming fixtures in the Anglo-Welsh Cup.

You've read those questionnaires in a hundred comics when you were a kid. Likes, dislikes, favourite food, favourite holiday, what car do you drive, and so on. And how many times when it got to the one about 'worst thing about your sport' did you see the answer: 'getting injured'?

In a career that's subject anyway to all sorts of unpredictable events, serious injuries are the biggest threat of all to any top player. You can stretch, you can warm up, but you can't stop the impact ones from happening. And when they do there's always a doubt about the long term effects.

Those are the questions that have hung over Jonny Wilkinson for years, and now it looks as if England's latest rugby pin-up boy Danny Cipriani is going to have to tackle the same sort of issues. Back at double quick speed from the broken ankle he suffered in the Guinness Premiership semi-final last May, he showed some promise on his return for Wasps on Wednesday night. But whether that means he will be ready in time for England's internationals next month is a different matter entirely.

He's going to have to be. Wilkinson will be missing at least until the new year and will undergo an operation tomorrow after dislocating his left knee at Gloucester on Tuesday. That means England will need a new fly-half when they start their winter internationals against Pacific Islands on November 8, and Cipriani is the obvious answer.

Will he be ready? Bath's Alex Crockett, the player who put Cipriani in hospital, has told The Sun's Tony Roche lots of nice things this morning but there's a few big buts in his verdict.

"I thought Danny did very well considering he was coming back six weeks ahead of schedule," he says.

"We felt he wasn't the attacking threat he was when they beat us three times last season but under the circumstances that's a lot to ask of anybody."

That faint praise means Wasps will go on struggling for a while. Cipriani will have to get back his match fitness with them - and then as soon as it arrives will go off to England.

Meanwhile, Wilkinson's latest blow - this will be his fifth operation since his drop-goal won the World Cup five years ago - means Newcastle rugby are in almost as much turmoil as the footballers down the road.

But just as Joe Kinnear's forceful arrival at St James' Park might kickstart Newcastle on the football field and make them value at [5.5] to win away to an Everton team suffering a hangover from going out of the UEFA Cup, so the rugby players look a decent outside bet at [3.5] to win at Newport in the EDF Energy Cup this evening.

They are going with their reserve team after playing two Premiership matches in five days, but that doesn't necessarily make them worse off. For a start, Dragons are also picking their second string with 12 changes from their last Magners League game and seven players aged 21 or younger included.

And Newcastle will be giving former Leeds Rhinos winger Danny Williams his debut and giving England Sevens scrum half Micky Young a first start. Who's for a Toon double?

Five things you might not know about Danny Cipriani

1. His parents split up when he was little, and his Mum Anne did The Knowledge to qualify as a taxi driver. She worked double shifts to send him to a £5,000 a year private school where he started playing rugby

2. As a boy he played football for Queens Park Rangers, was offered youth terms by Reading, and Surrey wanted him to join them after seeing him as a promising batsman for both Berkshire and Oxfordshire.

3. Instead he joined Rosslyn Park to play club rugby before being picked up by Wasps, making his debut aged 17

4. One of his Mum's cab passengers recommended Danny go to Margo Wells, wife of former Olympic 100m champion Allan, for speed training and he did, claiming it added an extra dimension to his game. She is still supervising his return to fitness now

5. He once appeared on the MTV show My Super Sweet 16 as a potential date, but was rejected for being too skinny