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Danny Cipriani’s future will be announced soon, but the Melbourne Rebels playmaker hasn’t signed a contract for next season with any rival clubs.
The Englishman has told the Herald Sun his management was in talks with other clubs but he wasn’t being distracted by reports out of Britain suggesting a deal with the Sale Sharks had been done.
“Things have to be cleared up pretty soon. I obviously have a few things in the pipeline, clubs I have been talking to, Melbourne being one. I’ll just see what happens,” he said.
“I’m not concerned (by the reports). They are all wanting to be the first to say what’s happening. But you’ve just got to deal with it. They have their job to do, so do I. It is what it is.”
It’s believed Cipriani has told club officials how excited he is about this year and the Rebels’ future, but Melbourne remains an outsider to hold on to him.
After a disappointing debut season with the Rebels, Cipriani is ready to repay the club and its fans.
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“My effort, attitude and work ethic, that’s all I can show now,” Cipriani told the Herald Sun.
“I could sit down and say I am going to do X, Y and Z, but if you don’t do it, don’t follow through, it’s nothing.
“From day one this pre-season, I made an effort to do everything I could. I worked hard, went on an army camp and worked hard on that, even though I hated every minute of it. It’s something some people enjoy. I didn’t.
“But I did everything to the best of my ability, knuckled down and got on with it and hopefully earned a bit of respect from that.
“That’s what happens during the season, too. There are things you don’t want to do but you’ve just got to do them, and that’s what I am going to be doing.”
Contrary to some suggestions, Cipriani said he was anything but loathing a return to Melbourne for another season with the Rebels.
Off-season time spent at home in England was welcome, and time with his mates was golden.
But the 24-year former England international said he did not have to be pushed to board the plane back to Australia.
“I was looking forward to it,” he said.
“I was going to attack this pre-season as best I can and get as fit as I can and in the best shape I can and get ready for the season because I know, potentially, we have a really strong side.”
In a clear signal that Cipriani wants to move beyond his off-field deeds, he conceded that while much was often made of not much at all, he certainly wasn’t a completely innocent victim of the media obsession with sporting bad boys.
“Sport has that funny way of trying to have those dramas and finding them,” he said.
“Sometimes the sportsmen create that themselves and I have been guilty of that, making small mistakes, but sometimes it gets blown up out of all proportion.
“I was larking about and messing about, but it wasn’t anything beyond that.
“You are always surprised that happens because it’s such a weird situation to be in. You don’t walk down the street thinking ‘this person knows who I am’, you are just being yourself.
“We all make mistakes, we’ve all been there. Some people just get scrutinised more. You have to learn from that … hopefully I have, because I’d like to keep my head out of the papers as much as possible.”
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Here’s the final Round 1 competition in Eater’s Hottest Chef in America contest. In a very close contest, yesterday’s 
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