The All Blacks have begun their preparation for The Bledisloe cup series beginning on October 11th. Video / All Blacks
COMMENT:
The tacky title would appear to say it all, particularly after reading some quite disturbing extracts from former England rugby forward James Haskell's just released book.
Of course you should never judge a book entirely by its extracts or even - in this case - a childish cover. Youcan't discount them either.
Because in 'What a Flanker', Haskell appears to not only admit to sexually harassing a hotel maid during the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand, but then accuses the woman of being a "chancer". He also seems more concerned about his own health and welfare than the maid's.
The extracts have been published in the Daily Telegraph and Haskell doesn't hold back in making himself look 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 viewed it as pest control, and teammates starting 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 on 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 supplied specific details of what was said (we are not printing them all here).
"One afternoon, Dylan Hartley, Chris Ashton and I were in Dylan's room when the door opened and a maid let herself in," Haskell writes
"She asked where (a) missing walkie-talkie was, we told her we didn't have it, but it started crackling and she tracked it down to a wardrobe."
Haskell then describes a sexually explicit suggestion he made to the maid. He and Hartley told Ashton to "stop being so rude" at a further comment Ashton made.
"This gives you an idea where our heads were at. If we thought any line had been crossed we immediately corrected ourselves," he said.
The players later found that the maid had "ramped up her allegations and we now stood accused of serious sexual harassment".
"The RFU's handling of the whole situation was shambolic," says Haskell, without any obvious concession that the players had put the England union in the position.
"I was furious that they'd put us in a room alone with the maid again (to apologise) that they'd been negotiating a payout without telling us and for telling us we had to pay the maid $30,000.
"I told them that I wasn't going to budge, that the woman was a chancer and that if we paid her it would look like an admission of guilt.
"…the RFU didn't seem to care about the truth or our welfare, they just wanted to make it all go away."
Other parts of the published extracts referring to the incident and aftermath appear to involve Haskell portraying himself as a victim.
Haskell doesn't hold back in assessing his World Cup captain Lewis Moody, who had demanded the players "give the f****** walkie-talkie back".
Haskell says he referred to Moody as "The Puppet", for the apparent crime of supporting his coach Johnson.
There was also the time a nutritionist intercepted a stash of chocolates to loose forward Tom Croft.
Haskell denies the claims - made in the media at the time - that the England players had been involved in dwarf-tossing at a Queenstown nightclub. The players had merely "had a bit too much to drink … the nightclub posted pictures of lads rolling about on the floor with dwarves".
England fans will no doubt be relieved to know that this particular team, while it may have had the odd fault, were comparative saints.
Haskell writes: "What irritated me was that the Irish and Welsh squads went on the p*** far more than the English.
"But the narrative was that England were a bunch of entitled w******, while the Irish and Welsh were plucky, fun-loving underdogs just taking a break from the rigours of the tournament."
Life is so unfair sometimes.
Haskell does seem to concede that the England campaign went awry, although it is not too clear if he feels at least partly responsible for this.
"The actual World Cup was a farce," he writes.
"The disarray 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, dark comedy and misery memoir."
