England rugby union fly-half Danny Cipriani is en route back to Blighty with his tail between his legs after a disastrous stint in the southern hemisphere.
The international will join Sale Sharks on a three-year deal after he plays out his commitments with Super Rugby side Melbourne Rebels in Australia.
In a short, but eventful, career the 24-year-old has gone from being anointed Johnny Wilkinson's successor to finding himself frozen out of the England national side.
Relationships with models, nightclub rendezvous and the odd punch-up have blighted a promising prospect, and that's without reflecting on his on-pitch performances.
Cipriani's defence has been highly criticised in Melbourne while he has been found wanting on many of the seven occasions he has been capped by England.
So let's remind ourselves why the one-time pin up fell from grace so swiftly...
She walks like a woman, but talks like a man...
The Kinks' "Lola" details Ray Davies' encounter with a transvestite he was mistakenly attracted to, before he realised "she" was in fact a he. In early 2008, Cipriani was dating Monica Irimia, one half of the Transylvanian-born pop duo The Cheeky Girls and the one who didn't date Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik.
The Kinks sing "Lola"
The News of the World then revealed Cipriani had spent the night in a hotel with a model named Larissa Summers, who duly recalled their encounter, much to the horror of Danny boy. The same newspaper later revealed Larissa was once a man named Darren. Simon Shaw, Cipriani's team-mate at Wasps at the time, merrily informed the press he was now known in the dressing room as "Danny Cipriani Who Slept With A Man".
Nightclub
Cipriani was axed by England just two days before he was due to make his full debut after he was filmed - let alone photographed - in a nightclub two days before a Six Nations game against Scotland in 2008.
It brought him to the attention of the paparazzi and his career was scrutinised minutely as a consequence. Cirpriani assured at the time he doesn’t drink alcohol and doesn’t go clubbing “as much as people seem to think”.
On-air swearing
When Cipriani belatedly made his debut the following week as a replacement for Wilkinson against Ireland, he did so in impressive fashion; converting all of his goal kicks to total 18 points.
Cipriani uses the F-word on live television:
But speaking to a BBC reporter after the match, he opined to Sonja McLaughlan: ""It's the f*****g one to eight who deserve the man of the match," making reference to England's forwards.
He immediately realised his blunder, and added: "I can't believe I've just sworn on live TV," yet it was an unwelcome distraction which acted as a magnet for his growing list of detractors.
Lewsey fight
Cipriani spent six years at Wasps, where he carved a niche for himself as a celebrity rugby player by dating Kelly Brook. That didn't spare him from England World Cup winner Josh Lewsey leaving him bleeding and dazed after battering him in a training ground brawl though.
Lewsey, a Sandhurst graduate, took rugby's latest golden boy down a peg when he knocked Cipriani out and left him with a bloody nose and cut lip during an altercation at Wasps’ training ground in west London. The session was reportedly abandoned.
Lewsey ostensibly criticised the then-20-year-old Cipriani for missing a couple of tackles, so Cipriani allegedly retorted, “Shut up or be shut up.” The irony. One right hook later, he only came around via the assistance of smelling salts.
Cipriani tweeted his commitment to Melbourne in the meantime:
Vodka Down Under
In February last year, Cipriani was seen helping himself to a bottle of vodka at a Melbourne nightclub after the first match of the season against New South Wales Waratahs. He was fined one match payment by the Rebels players' standards group, and withdrawn from selection for the game against Queensland Reds.
He was then left out of the Rebels' two-match squad to South Africa, and later admitted: "The vodka bottle incident was a silly prank. I should not have done it, but I am not a thief. The nightclub knew I wasn't deliberately stealing."
Dropped
Three months later in May, Cipriani was dropped from the Rebels squad again and told that he had "lost the confidence of the club's entire playing group", after staying out late following an away match against NSW. His feeble defence was brought into question again, after Lewsey had done so almost three years previously.