“People in rugby think everyone cares about it, but it has a small audience,” he says. ![]() Haskell remains a keen observer of the game and a podcast is an outlet for his trenchant thoughts. Only New Zealand have the knack of doing a U-turn in mugs’ alley.” I thought England would win, but the difference between the sides was that we did not rectify mistakes but when South Africa did something bad, the next three or four things they did were positive. It was really special for me and laid some ghosts. “Eddie invited me to watch training and speak to the players, thanking me for what I had done in the buildup to he tournament. Haskell was with the England squad in the week leading up to last November’s final against South Africa in Yokohama. Everyone had their knives out for him after the World Cup final loss was followed by a defeat to France, but he is too experienced to be deflected.” He does not kowtow to the media, which is brave. He knows his greatest commodity is the squad and he empowers players, treating them as adults and letting them have fun. “You can get caught up in the job because England is 90% media nonsense and red tape and 10% coaching. Eddie got the balance right in terms of the focus on people and tasks and he surrounded himself with good people. I felt for the coaches before him, Stuart Lancaster and Martin Johnson, because they wanted to focus on rugby but got bogged down by admin. He was as far from an RFU man as you could get, but he was what England needed. He was aspirational and the boys loved going into camp with him. ‘He treats players as adults,’ says the former England flanker. The only one of the many coaches Haskell – whose career took in France, Japan and New Zealand as well as the Premiership, England and the Lions – worked with who saw the value of a psychologist was Eddie Jones, the current England head coach. I paid for one myself, as I did nutritionists, speed and strength coaches, because I only had one career and never took what was in front of me as given.” I used a psychologist as someone to unburden on and put an arm around me. In my early days at Wasps, the coaches were harsh and critical, telling me to get running after a mistake. I remember being the only one in the England dressing room who was seeing, but the mind should be treated in the same way as the body. “Even in my darkest moments, I have been able to switch off, but that is not the same for most players. You had a bad game the previous week, the coach is not speaking to you and you are struggling with injury. You could find yourself staying in a low-budget hotel in a horribly hot room, on a tiny bed with poor springs and served terrible food. ![]() “The game pays players well but often gets the infrastructure wrong. All sports, especially rugby, are in the dark ages when it comes to psychology I went to see one from the start because I had confidence issues and wanted to develop a uniform way of preparing for matches. There is a stigma around psychologists because they are considered to be for people with problems, but that is wrong. “There are players who could be 10 times better if they reached out to deal with things. Being told to work harder does not solve those problems and all professional sports, especially rugby, are in the dark ages when it comes to psychology. “They might have had a row with the wife, taken criticism in the media, their body is tired and they are on a losing run. “There are players all around with demons in their heads,” he says. Injuries are a consequence of a game that has in the past 25 years become ever more physically unrelenting and intense, but Haskell invested in his mind at the start of his career with Wasps by paying to see a psychologist and continued to do so thereafter. Haskell retired last year just before his 34th birthday after his body finally rebelled against the treatment it had to endure for so long.
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