“HERE I stand. I can do no other. God help me.” Martin Luther spoke those words in 1521 but Wasps and England could be forgiven for changing the last three words to “God help us!” as we analyse the quasi-epidemic of the Cipriani Charge-Down.

Amid all the advice, the technical verbiage, the drop punt against the screw-kick, the eternity of time between the ball leaving the hand and making contact with the boot; amid all the headline-generating ideas to tamper with technique mid-season and watch the one-step snap of the American football kickers, nobody seems to have identified the biggest problem of all for the fly-half. He is standing in the wrong place.

The so-called charge sheet levelled at Cipriani is exactly the sort expected in relation to a left-footed kicker. The pair of charge-downs against Harlequins last Sunday and the seven-point slip-ups in the autumn for England against the Pacific Islanders and South Africa all happened when the fly-half moved right to left and - Shaun Edwards is absolutely right in this - took too long to get rid of the ball.

We will come back to the technical deficiency soon but first the words of Martin Luther. The South African charge-down apart, Cipriani’s positional play is identical. Admittedly, he did not expect to receive the ball against the Islanders but his instinctive movement was the same one that generated the headlines after the Harlequins match. He takes anything between three and five paces, ranging from a stuttering quick step to slow, lazy strides, before dropping the ball onto his boot.

Trying for the perfect punt, kicks that may travel 60 metres on the training field are not making six inches when the pressure comes on. Being a perfectionist in the Jonny Wilkinson mould, he will not easily change his long-developed style - especially midway through the season - but if he was to make a slight positional variation he would be rid of those cursed headlines.

Because of the right-to-left movement, he almost always drifts into the direct line of the defensive team’s fire. He was two metres to the left of the melee when Danny Care charged him down last Sunday. Two metres the other way and he would have been tucked safely behind the bulky, comforting presence of Phil Vickery and friends, safe from the surges of Care and Co.

He starts in the correct defensive position to clear his lines, directly behind his pack, but makes insufficient allowance for the extra steps that need eradicating at some stage, though maybe not at this moment when so many other matters are swirling through his head as he tries to play his way out of his first career crisis. The technical changes are something to be worked on preseason but here we have Cipriani being told to snap out of it and watch American football. In time the one-step snap might be the making of the man, not now.

The easiest way to eradicate the errors is the best formula for now, and that is for him to stand between three and five paces to the right of where a confident kicker would be, giving him extra leeway for his current kink. The chargers are getting to him because of where he kicks as much as how slowly he kicks. The positional play can be fixed at the drop of a hat. The best possible assistance for Cipriani or any young kicker with a charge-down habit is not a coaching session with a kicking coach but a DVD of Butch James’s kicking game last Sunday at Leicester.

The pair did not get the chance to go head-to-head yesterday because the Bath-Wasps game was another victim of the cold weather. Last weekend, however, James produced a tactical masterclass despite not being one of the growing legion of technicians who spend every waking minute refining each facet of the game. He is one of the least complicated players in the world, an uncomplicated fly-half and uncomplicated kicker. Jake White asked him to play one way for South Africa, Steve Meehan another for Bath. Both coaches - unlike England in the autumn - get their messages across and James translates them into reality. In contrast, the England tyro has lost his bearings.

Given the circumstances, it would have been a shock had he not. James has been around the rugby world; he has the experience of the ups and the downs. Cipriani, until the injury and return, has never known the meaning of a downer. The kicking disease is the symptom of a greater problem, that of a young man blessed with the touch of genius who has temporarily lost his way, not his nerve. Change his position and Cipriani will stand his ground against the best.