Only way is up for Danny Cipriani

Troubled Danny Cipriani fled England after off-field controversies stalled his once-glittering career, but further indiscretions in Australia have put his rugby union future on the brink.

Capped at 20, Cipriani was hailed as a star in the making only for a chaotic social life of women and partying to get in the way, in a pattern which has repeated itself in his adopted home.

Just months into his new life in Australia, the gifted fly-half has twice been disciplined by the Melbourne Rebels, his Super 15 club, for alcohol-fuelled incidents, putting him in danger of being sacked.

Club officials revealed Cipriani broke team rules by going out late not once, but twice after their April 30 defeat in Sydney and then missed training on the Monday, prompting them to drop him from a tour of South Africa.

The incident comes after Cipriani was fined by the team in February, when he was thrown out of a Melbourne nightclub for taking a bottle of vodka from behind the bar - a day after the Rebels lost their Super 15 debut 43-0.

"The playing group and management have lost confidence in Danny after the latest in a series of off-field breaches of the team's behavioural standards," Ross Oakley, the Rebels chief executive, said.

Such peccadilloes are nothing new for Cipriani, who was dropped just days before his debut for England in 2008 when he was photographed leaving a nightclub after midnight.

He was featured in English newspapers over his high-profile relationships with models and celebrities and was even reportedly floored by London Wasps teammate Josh Lewsey in a training ground bust-up in 2008.

Cipriani's attitude inevitably put him on a collision course with England's no-nonsense team manager Martin Johnson.

The seven-cap half-back, 23, took up the offer of a two-year contract to play for the Rebels, a new Super 15 franchise under Rod Macqueen, the former Australia coach, after discovering he did not figure in Johnson's World Cup plans.

But the road to redemption has proved difficult for Cipriani and it seems club officials, teammates and the media are fast running out of patience, particularly with the Rebels languishing second bottom of the Super 15 table after 11 games.

Cipriani's only significant contribution was the last-gasp penalty he kicked to seal the team's first victory in February.

"It is now easy to understand why Danny Cipriani is at risk of never fulfilling his potential as a rugby player," said an opinion piece in the Melbourne Age.

"Surely, now Cipriani must be on his last chance."

Will Carling, the former England captain, also said Cipriani is in danger of wasting his talent.

"He is an incredibly talented player but doesn't seem to understand the dynamics of playing in a team sport," Carling said in an English newspaper.

"There is a code within which teams operate and no one is exempt from it. Danny has to grow up and learn how to fit into a team.

"From what I saw of the guy, there seemed to be an attitude of 'the rules don't apply to me'. Well, they do."

Cipriani, according to his manager, regrets his latest misdemeanour.

"He wants to draw a line under this now and get on with what he does best, which is play rugby," Emanuele Palladino said in a statement last week.

The ball is once again in Cipriani's hands to show those are not just hollow words.

* Agence France-Presse

Why seagrass matters

Carbon sink: Seagrass sequesters carbon up to 35X faster than tropical rainforests
Marine nursery: Crucial habitat for juvenile fish, crustations, and invertebrates
Biodiversity: Support species like sea turtles, dugongs, and seabirds
Coastal protection: Reduce erosion and improve water quality

Key recommendations

Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier
Greater use of curfews and exclusion zones to deliver tougher supervision than ever on criminals.
Explore wider powers for judges to punish offenders by blocking them from attending football matches, banning them from driving or travelling abroad through an expansion of ‘ancillary orders’.
More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.

Transgender report

'I pretend I'm dumb so they can't hear my voice': Transgender Emirati on posing as a woman for work

'The person in the mirror was not me': Emirati tells of gender struggle from childhood to adulthood

LILO & STITCH

Starring: Sydney Elizebeth Agudong, Maia Kealoha, Chris Sanders

Director: Dean Fleischer Camp

Rating: 4.5/5

Normcore explained

Something of a fashion anomaly, normcore is essentially a celebration of the unremarkable. The term was first popularised by an article in New York magazine in 2014 and has been dubbed “ugly”, “bland’ and "anti-style" by fashion writers. It’s hallmarks are comfort, a lack of pretentiousness and neutrality – it is a trend for those who would rather not stand out from the crowd. For the most part, the style is unisex, favouring loose silhouettes, thrift-shop threads, baseball caps and boyish trainers. It is important to note that normcore is not synonymous with cheapness or low quality; there are high-fashion brands, including Parisian label Vetements, that specialise in this style. Embraced by fashion-forward street-style stars around the globe, it’s uptake in the UAE has been relatively slow.

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

Palestine and Israel

Michael Young: Israel's 'iron wall' is sealing the country off from peace

Saeb Erekat: Palestine is capable of overcoming the coronavirus spread

Alexandra Chaves: Gazan artists paint to bring attention to the coronavirus

The more serious side of specialty coffee

While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.

The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.

Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”

One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.

Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.