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Let’s get one thing straight. Danny Cipriani was not the cause of England’s rubbish performance against South Africa last Saturday. He was a victim of it.

Let’s examine his charged-down kick that led to a Springbok try as one example from many. I would not blame Danny Care either for Cipriani’s uncharacteristically ineffective performance, though the lead-up to that kick was interesting. Care sent out the longest, slowest, balloon of a pass you have ever seen towards Cipriani and by the time the ball reached its target, Cipriani was besieged by defenders.

Granted, he clearly should not have tried to execute the clearance kick but it was one instance of many of the young man being hung out to dry. The idea that Cipriani should be axed while so many culprits remain on the field and in the coaching team, is appalling.

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So Cipriani himself insists he would have dropped himself? Forget it. I treat with the gravest suspicion anything spouted in any national team rugby camp during Test week – including those people who are always right behind the coach but then fasten effortlessly and immediately on to the next one whenever the first is sacked.

We have also been treated lately to any number of barrack room psychologists, pub lounge behavioural therapists and would-be columnists for celeb magazines prognosticating on the dangers of the celebrity lifestyle as if Cipriani was some dreaded combination of Paul Gascoigne, Britney Spears and a heroin addict.

It seems from the views of these “experts” that Cipriani is in danger of wasting his talent by his dissolute lifestyle, endless partying, media courting and irresponsibility.

Utter drivel. With the possible exception of Jonny Wilkinson, Cipriani remains the most frighteningly dedicated sportsman I have ever interviewed. When we spoke last season and he outlined - with a warming humility - his typical week, it made me want to kidnap him for his own good; his day off alone involved frightening hours of training with the terrifying Margot Wells.

He is a quite magnificent talent and supremely single-minded. I was delighted when I heard that he had begun to see Kelly Brook, the actress and model. I feared for him till this distraction came along - yet a staggering number of people seem to believe that to have a girlfriend who is good looking and famous automatically places you on the celebrity treadmill leading to burn-out and a few weeks with those two ninny, talentless northerners and the sorry bunch eating rats in a copse of trees ten yards from an Aussie motorway that people pretend is a jungle.

Last Saturday, for goodness sake, Cipriani was seen leaving a nightclub. A young bloke at a nightclub with his girlfriend. My God! What next? Sodom and Gomorrah? Hell itself? Doctor Faustus Cipriani?

Yet the height of the nonsense was probably reached on Monday. As one media story said: “New Zealand lock Brad Thorn has warned Danny Cipriani his celebrity lifestyle may thwart his ambition of becoming the next Dan Carter.” What?

Of course, Brad Thorn would know all about celebrity lifestyle and its pressures from his Kiwi base and no doubt he would frequent nightclubs at home if there were any – and I appreciate he may only have been answering a question. But the number of times you see him in the Hollywood gossip columns is incredible. I hope Brad is happily married or I’m sure Madonna would have moved straight on to him after leaving Guy Ritchie. You have to be fair – he is from the gloriously-famous Tasman rugby team: a combination of the New York Yankees, Manchester United and the Dallas Cowboys.