Chris Rattue: England star James Haskell’s impressive revelations about the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand

COMMENTARY:

The tacky title would seem to say it all, particularly after reading some rather disturbing excerpts from ex-England rugby forward James Haskell’s recently published book.

Of course, you should never judge a book entirely by its excerpts or even, in this case, by a children’s cover. You also cannot rule them out.

Because in ‘What a Flanker’, Haskell appears not only to admit to having sexually harassed a hotel employee during the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand, but to later accuse the woman of being a “chancer”. He also seems more concerned with his own health and well-being than that of the maid.

The excerpts have been published in the Daily Telegraph and Haskell doesn’t stop at looking pretty silly.

There are revelations that at a pre-tournament camp in England, Haskell brought his rifle and “shot rabbits on the golf course.”

He saw it as a pest control and his teammates started bringing their air guns. Coach Martin Johnson, captain of the victorious 2003 World Cup team, was furious, particularly after a family came across a dead fox wrapped around a tree with a paper target to its face.

The incident involving the maid occurred during the team’s stay in Dunedin and was well reported at the time. But Haskell has provided specific details of what was said (we won’t print all of them here).

“One afternoon Dylan Hartley, Chris Ashton and I were in Dylan’s room when the door opened and a maid entered,” Haskell writes.

“He asked where (a) walkie-talkie was missing, we told him we didn’t have it, but it started creaking and he located it in a closet.”

Haskell then describes a sexually explicit suggestion he made to the maid. He and Hartley told Ashton to “stop being so rude” to an additional comment Ashton made.

“This gives you an idea of ​​where our heads were. If we think any lines were crossed, we immediately correct ourselves,” he said.

The players later found out that the maid had “stepped up her accusations and now we are accused of gross sexual harassment.”

“The RFU’s handling of the whole situation was chaotic,” Haskell says, with no obvious concession that the players had put the England union in position.

“I was furious that they put us in a room alone with the maid again (to apologize) because they had been negotiating a payment without telling us and for telling us that we had to pay the maid $ 30,000.

“I told them I was not going to give in, that the woman was a hunter and that if we paid her, it would seem like an admission of guilt.

“… the RFU didn’t seem to care about the truth or our well-being, they just wanted everything to go away.”

Other parts of the published excerpts that refer to the incident and the aftermath appear to involve Haskell portraying himself as a victim.

Haskell doesn’t stop assessing his World Cup captain Lewis Moody, who had demanded that players “give back the fucking walkie-talkie.”

Haskell says he referred to Moody as “The Puppet” for the apparent crime of supporting his coach Johnson.

There was also a time when a nutritionist intercepted a stash of chocolates to release striker Tom Croft.

Haskell denies claims, made in the media at the time, that England players had been involved in dwarf pitches at a Queenstown nightclub. The players simply “drank too much … the nightclub posted pictures of guys rolling on the floor with dwarfs.”

England fans will no doubt be relieved to learn that this particular team, while it may have had some flaws, were comparative saints.

Haskell writes: “What irritated me was that the Irish and Welsh squads were much more angry than the English.

“But the narrative was that England were a bunch of jerks, while the Irish and Welsh were brave and fun-loving who took a break from the rigors of the tournament.”

Life is so unfair sometimes.

Haskell seems to admit that England’s campaign went awry, although it is unclear whether he feels at least partly responsible for this.

“The current World Cup was a sham,” he writes.

“The mess that was the 2011 World Cup could be a whole book on its own. In terms of genre, it would be a mix of horror, black comedy and memories of misery.”

A complete book on these things? Maybe not.