KEY POINTS:
As he approaches his first tilt at the All Blacks, England flanker James Haskell will run through various checklists gathered from his old Wasps club mentors Warren Gatland and Lawrence Dallaglio.
Haskell has been identified as the looseforward heir to the totemic Dallaglio for both club and country
and will pit his standards on Saturday against All Black forwards such as Richie McCaw and Rodney So'oialo, men whose qualities he wants to absorb in his game.
The 23-year-old Haskell has already soaked up plenty of lessons at Wasps. There was the grounding from Gatland, the long-time deputy All Black hooker who has gained greater fame as a coach, and the mental edge from Dallaglio.
The club's former All Black prop and forwards boss Craig Dowd is adamant New Zealand will appreciate Haskell's rugby talents and warned that he "is already a bigger, faster and stronger Dallaglio" and that the England team have an excess of quality forward prowess.
Getting Haskell to talk about his rugby influences is uncomplicated. Chatting comes easy, he has a newspaper column and confesses he finds talking sometimes more effortless than playing rugby.
"I have always been very loud and very talkative," he said.
"It was like that from the time I joined Wasps. But when you join a rugby club and you are trying to earn your spurs, it does not necessarily go hand in hand. Some of the senior players sort of looked up and wondered who this bloke was.
"I tried to be quiet but people thought I was ill."
Early on at Wasps, Gatland taught the young loose forward the rugby fundamentals about mentality, structure and patterns. He emphasised the values of teamwork and the ethics of unselfish rugby.
"Gats was massively important in the way we wanted to play at Wasps and what he taught me about my game," Haskell said. "I remember we had a pre-season camp in Poland and for some reason, [hooker] Trevor Leota and I ended up having a fight during a mauling practice. It's never the best plan to fight Trevor but still, I gave a good account of myself.
"Normally you would think your coach would be a bit concerned but Gats came up, put his arm round me and said 'that's my boy, that's my boy'. He used to emphasise that physical edge while [assistant coach] Shaun Edwards' desire was also great.
"Gats set the rules. If he had not been really good I could have wandered off on my own tangent and taken some time to get back."
If Gatland was the director, Dallaglio was the inspiration, someone who played as he spoke, who brought a real edge to his work in every game he played. The 1.93m, 110kg Haskell does not want to be known as a Dallaglio clone but he does want to emulate his success. "It was great to finish playing alongside him to win the [English club] premiership because he is one of my heroes. I loved his sayings, his mentality and we will miss that but he won't be too far away," Haskell said.
At times, Haskell said he was tempted to leave Wasps as his ambitions fought with his ability. His way was blocked by other test players but his father persuaded him to do his time and rise above those challenges.
"The dynamic of Wasps was that every player was on a level playing field, from Dallaglio down to the academy guys. It is a special atmosphere and I never want to leave that. Having so much competition meant that when you got an opportunity you really had to perform.
"It took me a while to get into that groove but when I did, I was able to establish myself for a bit longer."
Haskell is coming to the end of a season in which he has played about 30 games.
It is a long slog but for a first-time visitor to this part of the world, getting "up" for two tests against the All Blacks is no problem.
