- Title: RUGBY UNION-ENGLAND England will wait on Cipriani
- Date: 23rd June 2015
- Summary: BAGSHOT, ENGLAND, UK (JUNE 23, 2015) (REUTERS) ENGLAND COACH STUART LANCASTER WALKS IN ENGLAND BADGE (SOUNDBITE) (English) STUART LANCASTER, ENGLAND COACH, SAYING: "No not ideal, but it's an uncontrollable for me so we'll wait and see whether the police will charge or not as the case maybe and I'll deal with it as and when it's appropriate." QUESTION: 'No issue going to th
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- Topics: General
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- Story Text: England coach Stuart Lancaster said on Tuesday (June 23) that he is waiting on the outcome of a police investigation before he decides whether to include Danny Cipriani in his World Cup squad.
The fly-half was arrested for alleged drink-driving earlier this month and is training with England ahead of the police report which is expected to be finished in early August.
With centre Manu Tuilagi and hooker Dylan Hartley already missing from the squad due to disciplinary issues, Lancaster said that Cipriani would remain in his plans pending the outcome of the police report.
"It's an uncontrollable for me so we'll wait and see whether the police will charge or not as the case maybe and I'll deal with it as and when it's appropriate," he said at a training session in Bagshot, near London.
On Monday (June 22), winger David Strettle withdrew from the training squad after effectively ruling himself out of contention by joining French club Clermont Auvergne.
The 31-year-old, who won the Premiership title with Saracens last month, has signed a three-year deal with the French side and said he wanted to concentrate on his new club challenge.
Under RFU rules, Lancaster cannot select players plying their trade for a club overseas unless in "exceptional circumstances" such as a long injury list.
"It's his decision and I've got to respect his decision. He's going to do what he feels is right for his family and for his career but ultimately it's his call.
"He's been to France, he'd considered his options and alternatives and decided to withdraw from the camp. Obviously I was disappointed in that and said to him have you thought this through, it's a big camp, we're not going to hold this against you in terms of coming into the camp.
"As I alluded to in the press on a 50-50 call of probably I'd probably more likely go with someone who was probably going to be around long term but that wasn't going to stop him from coming to camp. He'd made his decision to withdraw so as a consequence I was was in no other position than to accept that and look at the next guy in," Lancaster said, adding that Bath Rugby's Semesa Rokoduguni has been called up.
"It's a very competitive position wing and it was very difficult at the time to select the wingers we had and leave one or two out, so I'm certainly more than happy with Roko (Semesa Rokoduguni) coming in and Christian (Christian Wade) as well as an option for us further down the line."
Lancaster was supervising England's summer training camp for the 50-man squad, which will be trimmed to 31 players before the opening World Cup match with Fiji at Twickenham on September 18.
"They're all super excited. I think to start the camp with everyone on the same day was an important thing for us. There's real buzz about the camp yesterday when we came in and I gave them a little bit of a talk about where I felt we were as a group and where we wanted to get to and that got them pretty excited about everything and now it's just about trying to hold them back actually, because they're desperate to go," he said.
"The stakes are high. Obviously you can base a lot of your decisions of selection and I will base a lot of decisions on what people have done in the past, their form from the last six months, their international experience, their value added, their leadership ability and all those things. But equally it will come down to, in certain cases, what happens in the next four to six weeks." - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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