“How long before I get in? Before it starts, before I begin? How long before you decide, Before I know what it feels like?”
The first verse of Coldplay’s Speed of Sound. It is one of the songs that James Haskell plays on his iPod before matches to bring him to the correct preparatory pitch. “You choose tracks not so much for the words but for the impact, the emotion they bring out and the feelings of confidence,” he says. He might not have chosen it for the words, but “How long before I get in?” might well be his career question.
Haskell, in essence, has it all. He is nearly 6ft 4in, weighs in at more than 17st, has pace, good hands, is athletic and frighteningly dedicated. This is the man who stays behind after Wasps training for extra tackling sessions. With Joe Worsley. Full on, in a small five-metre channel. Just Haskell, and the hardest tackler in the England game.
He has just played in the England Under-21 team that won the 2006 Grand Slam, and will play in the Under-21 World Cup during the summer. He is on his way.
And does he remind you of anybody? Wasps back-rower, blond-haired, massive, chiselled jaw, voluble, rumbustious, larger than life and yet thoroughly engaging? Haskell doesn’t want to to be seen as the “New Lawrence Dallaglio”, despite the similarities, although the two-year extension to the contract Wasps awarded him last week is testimony that they see him as Dallaglio’s successor. Haskell has everything — except a starting jersey, the path to advancement, and so the frustration burns.
He is not alone. He is, in several ways, an archetype. He is the typical modern-day back-row man for a start. Yet he is also representative of a generation of elite young England prospects, emerging from the culture change when happy-go-lucky underachievement was the norm of the decades to the new era when dedication is ferocious. Sweat and intensity are their fellow travellers. And so is impatience.
For Haskell, it is worse than for most. His high promise was identified a long time ago. He came to the attention of Wasps with outstanding play for Wellington school and Maidenhead Colts, two highly successful teams in his native Berkshire, and was whisked away by Wasps for a summer.
“I was only 17 but I did the whole pre-season training with the players I had been watching as a Wasps fan — Lawrence, Joe, Rob Howley. I played for Wasps in a pre-season against Connacht, then against Montferrand; I was on the openside and marking Olivier Magne. Bizarrely, a few days later I was back in school. But I had had a glimpse, and it was fantastic.”
In September 2003, he became one of the youngest players ever to start in the Premiership, for Wasps against Harlequins. Since then, frustration. He suffered a knee injury which cost him momentum. At the start of this season he aggravated a wrist injury scoring a try in the Middlesex Sevens (“Maybe it was the unfamiliarity of the act”). He needed a pin in the bone and the injury took a fiendishly long time to clear. I came upon him at a Sevens tournament last autumn, as ever bursting with intent, but also steaming, almost visibly, and holding his wrist out in front of him as if it was a poisoned chalice in bandages.
He is now fit, and usually in the Wasps match 22. He will be on the bench for the key match against London Irish at High Wycombe today. “We have the best coaches, the best medical and back-up. I love the environment,” he says. But with all that comes a squad of back-row galacticos. Haskell is competing for a starting place with the legends, men such as Dallaglio and Worsley, both of whom he admires without reservation, and with fellow emerging talents, including Johnny O’Connor, John Hart and Tom Rees, and with Dan Leo, the Samoan.
He says he has no issue with Wasps’ selection policy, just with the circumstances. “It is hard. You get parachuted in one week and then out for three weeks. When you do get in, it’s difficult to relax and play naturally. Then, if things don’t go well, you get four weeks to think about it. Frustrating! “My goal has always been to play four matches on the trot. Tom Rees got a run last year when Johnny O’Connor was injured. He played okay in his first game, maybe not great. Then he improved for his second, and he was outstanding by the fourth. When you get a run, your confidence grows, you show people what you can really do. “
He has never started more than two games in succession. His response is to let the frustration work for him. Whether he gets a start or whether he gets the last 15 minutes, he wants to do his utmost, and do it with precision.
“I try to get the confidence from knowing that I have done the extra work. It might only be 15 minutes at the end of every session, but it could be work on core skills, handling. And the tackling with Joe. We try to beat each other in the five-metre channel — you can step right, step left, swivel. We work on all the different tackles you need for different situations. If it’s not Joe, then it might be Tom Rees. I will work with whoever will let me tackle them.”
The precision extends to the game of the mind. He works with Dr Jill Owen, a psychologist. “We talk through focusing on when I get brought on, about not worrying about going out there to make an impression, just putting in some tackles, about carrying the ball well. And if things don’t go so well, don’t dwell.”
He is also helped in the art of mental build-up. Again, it is the precision that is impressive. “In some of the games I did start, I made some early mistakes,” says Haskell. “Shaun (Edwards, the coach) reminded me that to get into the right frame of mind was so important. Everyone is different in the dressing room. You get the screamers and shouters; those who head-butt the wall. Others take it all light-heartedly. At Wasps we have a player I won’t name, who sits and reads a novel.
“So I spoke about it with Dr Owen. I’ve picked up on music, songs that bring out that emotion and excite you.” He relies particularly on Snow Patrol’s Chocolate, and on Coldplay. No tunes unplayed, no stones unturned.
Haskell is a vivid character. Even in repose in the back room of his favourite restaurant in the leafy Berkshire lanes, he is full of intensity. “I do talk a lot and I am very outgoing. I suppose that’s what makes me a major target for the banter in the Wasps dressing room. Nobody escapes.”
He has his own website and own sponsors. He recently appeared on RFTG (the Rugby for the Girls website), which celebrates the goodness of rugby and the male form. “James posed for our camera in his Wasps kit, his white skin-tight Armourfit shirt and, yes . . . with his top off!” says the testimony.
He was concerned as he walked back to his car last week. “Please don’t make too much of all that. I would hate people to say that I am getting all the attention and I have the website but that I haven’t even played very much yet and that I can talk a good game. And I don’t go to a psychologist because I have problems. It’s just that I want to cover every aspect to reach the top of my game.”
His anxiety was misplaced. I felt that I had met a player who is media-savvy and sharp, but far from seeking profile for the sake of it, he would gladly gag himself for life in exchange for a run in the team. James Haskell is a player who proves the theory, especially through his own passions, that whatever English rugby’s recent difficulties, the trend is still strongly upwards. He will get his run of games soon, and you feel that frustration will give way to glorious release.
