England rugby star: How I changed Dunedin ‘sex-wise’

England player James Haskell has revealed how the partners of some of his Highlanders’ team-mates praised him for adding some much-needed spark to their bedrooms. Photo / New Zealand Herald

England rugby star James Haskell received numerous emotional farewells when he departed Dunedin after a one-season stint with the Highlanders.

And the 77-test veteran has revealed the gratitude came not just from his team-mates for what he did on the field.

Instead, some of the most heartfelt words of thanks he received during his stay in Dunedin came from the partners of the men he played alongside, for spicing up their sex lives.

In his newly released second rugby memoir, Ruck Me, Haskell has revealed how his mission to be the best at whatever he did had also stretched into his sex life.

That included reading a book before playing for the Highlanders in 2012 which claimed to offer techniques to make men better lovers. He said it “worked a treat” and remembers telling a fellow England team-mate “in hushed tones, as if I’d discovered the Holy Grail”.

“People might be reading this and thinking I’m a bit weird, for taking sex so seriously,” Haskell wrote in Ruck Me. “But, to me, it makes perfect sense: if you’re going to be a sex person, why would you not want to be the best sex person you could possibly be.”

Once in Dunedin, Haskell spoke of the book to his new team-mates.

Some were left “sniggering”, with Haskell saying he was viewed with “deep suspicion, as if I’d lost my mind”.

Former England and Lions star James Haskell’s fond farewell included appreciation for adding spice of Highlanders’ players sex lives. Photo / Alan Gibson

But within days, Haskell said those attitudes changed among some of his team-mates.

A handful approached him after training sessions and asked where they could get a copy of the book themselves.

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“It was all very hush-hush, as if they were seeking entrance into some Satanic cult,” Haskell said.

“I told them what it was called and that they could download it on to their iPhones or iPads using the Kindle app so that no one would ever know they were reading it.”

“And I kid you not, about a month later two of these blokes’ partners approached me on two occasions and said something along the lines of, ‘Thank you, just thank you’ and ‘I can’t thank you enough for your book recommendation . . . it’s been, well, amazing’,” Haskell wrote.

“That book changed the game in Dunedin, sex-wise. And whenever I’m feeling a bit low, I console myself with the thought that at least two women of that parish benefited from my hunger for improvement and willingness to share secrets.”

Another New Zealand memory he shares in Ruck Me wasn’t as humorous for him.

In 2010, he was part of the England team that travelled to Napier to play New Zealand Māori at McLean Park.

It came after a tour of Australia when the team had a record of two wins, a loss and a draw, with Haskell saying players just wanted to return home.

“It didn’t help that someone had described Napier to me as ‘the retirement village of New Zealand’. I thought, ‘Pretty much all of New Zealand seems like a retirement village, so Napier must be like a cemetery’,” Haskell wrote in Ruck Me.

“Napier might have been a cemetery, but the ground that night was like a zombie apocalypse. It was a proper gnarly place, with a really intimidating crowd right on top of the pitch. And the Māori were out for English blood, as usual.”

England lost the match 38-25. Before the end of the night Haskell said he and some of his team-mates also almost got a beating from upset punters at a bar he described as “a bit spit and sawdust, a bit naughty, with a real Once Were Warriors vibe”.

First, he was approached aggressively by a man incorrectly claiming Haskell had thrown ice at him.

The furious man’s wife entered the fray, with the woman slipping over on the wet floor after Haskell said he “put my hand on her shoulder, to gently manoeuvre her out of the way”.

“The place went quiet, you could have heard a pin drop,” Haskell wrote.

The England rugby team train ahead of their match at Napier’s McLean Park in 2010. Photo / NZPA

“When all these Māori boys started getting up from different tables and walking towards me, I almost s**t myself. They kept appearing from every corner and, when I looked around, the lads I had been with had shrunk into the background.

“I offered to help the woman up but she knocked away my hand. This was going to get a lot worse before it got better.”

Haskell said he believed he was saved from receiving a “hiding of a lifetime” after a group of rugby fans came forward to say it wasn’t Haskell who had thrown the ice, and then told punters that the woman had slipped in some water.

“Thank God, because if they hadn’t been paying attention, I’m not sure anyone with an English accent would have made it out of their alive,” he wrote in his book, Ruck Me.