Danny Cipriano has been in a spat with team mate Josh Lewsey and received a few cuts and bruises. It’s all part of the game, we’re told and not to make too much fuss about it. Now I wasn’t part of that training session and I haven’t interviewed either party but that doesn’t stop me speculating that the ugly culture of celebrity has played a role in this disharmony. In one newspaper report I saw both players described as celebrities and it got me thinking about the true nature of this artificial state of being, so revered in our society yet so reviled by those with intelligence and taste.

When Did Rugby Players Become Known as Pretty Boy Celebrities?

These two players are both rugby internationals and in the public eye, one more so than the other. Cipriani because he is a successful rugby player who is a pretty boy, goes to nightclubs and has a beautiful and well known girlfriend. The other because he is a successful rugby player. It’s a similar story to, say, George Best and Bobby Moore or David Beckham and Paul Scholes. In both of these latter examples, their off-pitch celebrity status has been seen as an additional dimension to their prominence and something that gets in the way of the job in hand. No matter how down to earth these guys are, when they get used to seeing themselves in the tabloids every day they start to take on a different sense of self. Somehow elevated above the ordinary folk. Perhaps they see themselves as deserving special treatment. Or is it that they are simply distracted from the peak training and tactical requirements that their sport demands?

It’s hardly surprising that frustrations occur in players dedicated to their team, the rigour of training and the determination to win when they sense that a team member upon whom they must rely is any less committed and dedicated to the task in hand than they are. If they see hours of work come to nothing because their support wasn’t up to it, after one too many nights out at a Mayfair nightclub, then they will get very angry indeed and sometimes they might explode and, despite their better judgement, they may just lash out in the sheer frustration of the moment.