There is no let-up when you're one of four people chasing three places. "I played alongside Gareth, who can perform any of the back-row roles, at Northampton a couple of weeks ago and he was awesome, our best forward by miles. "Am I a better player now than when I won my England caps? Yes, I believe I am," he agreed. "It helps playing in a good club, one that pushes you and doesn't guarantee you a starting place every weekend."As Bath used Gareth Delve, the young Welsh international, on the open-side flank in the Heineken Cup quarter-final victory over Leicester, he was speaking from the heart "It's incredibly competitive here," he continued. I can't say I was too happy." Yet, in a way, the cloud had a lining of brightest silver.He is far closer to being in one piece than most players at this late stage of proceedings, and therefore perfectly placed to come with a rush on the England front. Then, Michael Foley [the World Cup-winning Wallaby working on the Bath coaching staff] got in touch, and I signed. It was the best thing I ever did."All things considered, Lipman would have preferred not to have fractured his eye socket and broken his cheekbone within minutes of taking the field for Bath's first warm-up game of the campaign last August, especially as he had just recovered from the chronic problems with an ankle that wrecked the last four months of his 2004-05 season."I'd just got myself back in proper shape," he said "Before I knew it, I was out for another eight weeks.
They took it hardest."As it turned out, we were relegated on the last day and everyone left I went back to Australia with no particular plans. By the end of the campaign, they were deep in the relegation mire, along with neighbouring Bath."That was a rubbish time - the absolute worst," Lipman said. "There was all this talk of a merger with Bath, which I think might have happened had Bath been the ones that finished bottom No one could tell us anything. Where would Bristol be the following season? Would there be a club at all? It was anyone's guess. I felt really sorry for the local players, people who had grown up burning to play for Bristol.
When Bristol showed some interest, I signed for them."And so began two wild, wacky seasons at the Memorial Ground. When Lipman arrived, the coaches were Dean Ryan, one of the brightest of England's new back-room breed, and Jimmy Grant, an Australian who had alerted the club to Lipman's qualities in the first place.Bristol, an up-and-down lot to put it mildly, cemented their place in the Premiership that first season, and made a debut in the Heineken Cup in the second, beating the powerful French side Montferrand both home and away and putting 40 points on Swansea.Yet while they were getting things right in Europe, they were getting them badly wrong domestically. "My best friends in rugby back home, people like George Smith and David Lyons, had their contracts safely in their back pockets, but I couldn't get myself a deal So I started to think about trying my luck in England. It's a tough position, but I love it." Lipman was good enough to come to the notice of the Waratahs - the New South Wales franchise in what was then known as Super 12 - but not considered quite good enough to break into the big time."I played for Waratahs Bs, but that was as far as I got," he said. I spent my time in the backs when I was a kid, but that was because I wanted to look good. All my instincts are geared towards the open-side position, so that's where I've played all my serious rugby. Where else? "I've always been a No 7," he said this week, as he contemplated 80 minutes of high-intensity rugby against Serge Betsen and Imanol Harinordoquy, experienced international operators who remain among the most potent back-rowers in French rugby."I'm too short to be a blind-side flanker, too small to play No 8.