England kicking coach Jon Callard says that he is determined to help Danny Cipriani cancel out the charge-downs that have depleted the fly-half’s confidence in recent weeks.

The 21-year-old has made a number of kicking errors for England and Wasps in the last couple of months and it appears that opponents are starting to work out his game.

Despite this, Callard believes that the situation ‘can be rectified’ and that all Cipriani needs is ‘a little bit more time on the ball’. The England coach also accepts that the player has lost a bit of belief in his own ability after being dropped by England because of several errors in the November internationals.

South Africa, Italy and the Pacific Islanders all capitalised on these mistakes to score tries and it is crucial that this technical fault is sorted sooner rather than later. If not, Cipriani will find it difficult to stake a claim for a place in Martin Johnson’s team during 2009.

As for how this problem can be sorted, Callard says that when Cipriani receives the ball he needs to ‘get the ball away in one pace’. A technique he compares with the players in American football. This certainly gives Cipriani something to think about. Will he be able to change his game to improve things?

For England’s sake – I hope so. There is no doubt that Cipriani is a very talented young man and if he can improve this one area of his game, the rugby odds will back him to have a long and successful England career.

The only worry I have is that this kicking problem has been a problem for a while now. Too often in the last 18 months, Cipriani has been slow when kicking the ball away. This leads me to ask – why hasn’t there been any sign of improvement so far?

Cipriani has been part of the England squad for a significant amount of time and the fact that he is still making these areas is concerning. Surely the England coaching staff would have tried to improve his technique before now?

Something I would say is that Cipriani could do with a spell out of the limelight. During his rugby career to date and especially since he started going out with Kelly Brook, he has become a regular in the tabloids for his antics outside rugby. This could be affecting his game.

What he needs to do is go back to basics. He has a talent and it would be such a shame to waste it. Yes, he has been over-hyped in the past, but not without good reason. This guy is capable of great things and I just hope he starts to prove this in 2009.

By Thomas Rooney – A sports writer who blogs about rugby betting