In 2011, Haskell agreed to join the Highlanders in Super Rugby, saying he has always wanted to play in new environments and to "improve and become a better player for England". During the season after the World Cup, he would play in Japan for the Rams, before seeking a Super Rugby contract for the rest of the season. He announced at the end of the 2010–11 season that he had been released from his contract at Stade Francais, and would instead be rejoining Wasps at the start of the 2012–13 season. It was announced on 17 February 2009 that Haskell would join Top 14 side Stade Francais at the end of the 2008–09 season. The following season he started as Wasps won the 2007–08 Premiership Final. He was a replacement as Wasps won the 2007 Heineken Cup Final. Haskell played for Maidenhead Rugby Club prior to joining (Wasps RFC), where he was part of the highly successful Colts set up. He was educated at Papplewick School in Ascot, Berkshire and Wellington College in Crowthorne, also in Berkshire. James Andrew Welbon Haskell was born on 2 April 1985 in Windsor, Berkshire No player wants to be seen as weak, not putting their body through the wringer when everyone else is. I think in the past too many coaches took advantage of good, loyal people who desperately wanted to do what was best for the team. Sadly, quite a few players adopted that mantra and ended up falling to bits. His solution to any problem was to get some soup and pills down a stricken player’s neck and just strap up the injury. One coach whom I had worked with during some age-group rugby with England, who went on to coach in the Premiership for many years, had a famous saying: “What’s wrong, chief? Nothing a bit of pills and tape won’t fix.” You don’t want to let someone else have that shirt.
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I didn’t want to be sticking needles in my a-, and I probably should not have played that day, but the desire to represent your club or country burns very bright. It was 100 per cent legal, and only a Voltarol jab, but it felt very wrong. I was never a pill-smasher, but many times in the past I got my ankles and toes jabbed with anaesthetic or anti-inflammatories to numb them so I could play, or post-surgery to deal with pain.īefore one international, I was in so much pain but unwilling to go and tell anyone that I ended up giving myself an anti-inflammatory injection in the buttock in the changing-room toilets. Then I’d limp downstairs, make breakfast, limp out to the car and drive to training.
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Everything would be sore – my neck, my shoulders, my back, my hips, my ankles, my feet, my toes. I was in pain for so much of my career that it became normal. I knew it was time to get it fixed when I went on holiday after the tour and it kept popping out whenever I was asleep or went to switch the light off.
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The finger would pop out when someone shook my hand and even when I was asleep. I only had four operations during my career: I had a huge piece of floating bone removed from my ankle a patellar tendon scrape on my knee toe reconstruction surgery and surgery to fuse a finger because it kept popping out. I had it relatively easy but I still wake up in pain every day, and can’t run anymore. People don’t realise the hell rugby players put their bodies through. Rugby has got a lot of things right and also has an awful lot of problems, but the most pressing concern, for anyone who loves the game and professes to be concerned about the people who play it, is player welfare.