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'It's not a holiday camp': James Haskell warns England's Japan-bound Premiership players
Ex-England flanker James Haskell has some words of warning for the increasingly significant number of English players heading to Japan. Haskell’s globetrotting career saw him join the Tokyo-based Ricoh Black Rams in late 2011, featuring in eleven Top League games before moving on to Super Rugby’s Highlanders.
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Now with George Kruis and Alex Goode poised to join Freddie Burns in sealing a switch to the Far East, Haskell has made it clear that playing in Japan is no “holiday camp” as the major companies funding many of the teams expect a huge return on their investment.
Haskell told RugbyPass: “If you can go there, play twelve games and miss most of the pre-season, then it can be a great experience. But pre-season in Japan lasts longer than the actual league season and it’s not a holiday camp – they work you hard.
“When I first went there I thought I would be a Godzilla-like character knocking people out of the way, but a lot of Pacific Islanders are playing in Japan and suddenly you are standing next to a 125kg Tongan.
“Each team has superstars who are usually massive units while the Japanese love commitment and there is nothing more committed than diving at someone’s knees to knock them down.
“It’s hugely physical in the tackle area and I remember Ma’a Nonu being hit by the replacement hooker and I thought he had done his knee ligaments after being chopped in half. Thankfully he was okay.
“The English players don’t have as much exposure in Japan but what the teams and fans want is for you to show your commitment and there is pressure to perform. The pre-season is massively attritional and the motto at Ricoh when I was there was ‘more is better’.
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“I sat in endless meetings where the talk was about wanting homegrown talent, people from Bath – yet I didn’t get given an opportunity”
– @FreddieBurns tells @heagneyl how it fizzled out for him at @bathrugby and why @shokki is an adventure he craves ???https://t.co/c3Iqqo3so2— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) May 6, 2020
“I sat down in my first meeting with the coach and a translator and I tried to give him an analogy about a Range Rover Sport and while it may be good for off-roading, if you’re driving it across the desert every day it will fall apart. He just smiled at me. The training sessions were two-and-a-half hours long!
“You have up to 60 players in a squad – my number was 63 – and the companies are closely linked to the team. In Kobe, when the steel company that backs the team was struggling, they started to link more closely with the rugby team being coached by Wayne Smith.
“The players went to games in factory workers’ clothing and Smith ensured the team reconnected with the company. They signed Dan Carter and they won the league. At Ricoh, we had twelve professionals and the rest of the players were coming off their bicycles into training.”
Doing your homework properly about where the team you have signed for plays in Japan is also important. Haskell was based in Tokyo with a population of nine million and found the city expensive.
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Goode is expected to play for NEC Green Rockets who are based in Chiba, a city of 970,000 people. Out-half Burns will be playing for Toyota-owned Shokki Shuttles In Nagoya and if Gloucester boss Johan Ackermann does make his rumoured move to NTT Docomo Red Hurricanes he will be living in Osaka.
“The culture is great in Japan and financially it depends which team you go to because some of the country is remote and some guys won’t have done their homework and research,” continued Haskell.
Rees could have been one of the greats https://t.co/dptsqv6TfW
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) May 9, 2020
“Tokyo is hugely expensive. I flew over before I signed and saw the house I was being given. It was a two-floor pink place with a small bath. You also got a bicycle and it was 30 minutes by bike to the station.
“It’s a big move. If you can immerse yourself in the culture is it great, but don’t try and learn Japanese. It’s a very difficult language to learn and that makes it hard.”
Players heading to Japan will also find unusual items on dining menus, Haskell admitting to having eaten cod sperm during his time there. “I did eat cod sperm. It was just as you would imagine – sort of warm, salty and not very nice.”
Comments on RugbyPass
He is right , the Crusaders will be a threat. Scott Barrett, ( particularly), Fergus Burke , Codie Taylor, ( from sabbatical) etc due back soon for the Crusaders. There are others like Zach Gallagher too. People can right the Crusaders off, Top 8 , here we come !!
1 Go to commentsWe will always struggle for money to match the other sides but the least the WRU can do is invest properly in Welsh rugby. Too much has been squandered on vanity projects like the hotel and roof walk amongst others which will never see a massive return. Hanging the 4 pro sides out to dry over the last decade is now coming back to bite the WRU financially as well as on the pitch. You reap what you sow.
1 Go to commentsWhat do you get if you cross a doctor with a fish? A plastic sturgeon
14 Go to commentsWhat happened to feleti Kaitu’u? Hasnt played in a while right?
1 Go to commentsGregor I just can’t agree with you. You are trying to find something that just isn’t there. Jordie Barrett has signed until 2028. By the end of that he would have spent probably 11-12 years on Super Rugby and you say he can’t possibly have one season playing somewhere else. It is absurd. What about this scenario, the NZR play hard ball and he decides to leave and play overseas. How would that affect the competition. There seems to be an agenda by certain journalists to push certain agendas and don’t like it when it’s not to their liking. I fully support the NZR on this. Gregor needs to get a life.
2 Go to commentsHope he stays as believe he can do a great job.
1 Go to commentsMake what step up? Manie has a World Cup winner’s medal around his neck and changed the way the Springboks can play. He doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone. The win record of the Boks with him in the team is tremendous. Sacha can be wonderful and I hope he has a very succesful Bok career, but comparing him to Manie in terms of the next Bok flyhalf is very strange. Manie is the incumbent (not the next) and doing pretty incredibly.
1 Go to comments00 😍 U
1 Go to commentsSabbaticals have helped keep NZ’s very best talent in the country on long term deals - this fact has been left out of this article. Much like the articles calling to allow overseas players to be selected, yet can only name one player currently not signed to NZR who would be selected for the ABs. And in the entire history of NZ players leaving to play overseas, literally only 4 or 5 have left in their prime as current ABs. (Piatau, Evans, Hayman, Mo’unga,?) Yes Carter got an injury while playing in France 16 years ago, but he also got a tournament ending injury at the 2011 World Cup while taking mid-week practice kicks at goal. Maybe Jordie gets a season-ending injury while playing in Ireland, maybe he gets one next week against the Brumbies. NZR have many shortcomings, but keeping the very best players in the country and/or available for ABs selection is not one of them. Likewise for workload management - players missing 2 games out of 14 is hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Again let’s use some facts - did it stop the Crusaders winning SR so many times consecutively when during any given week they would be missing 2 of their best players? The whole idea of the sabbatical is to reward your best players who are willing to sign very long term deals with some time to do whatever they want. They are not handed out willy-nilly, and at nowhere near the levels that would somehow devalue Super Rugby. In this particular example JB is locked in with NZR for what will probably (hopefully) be the best years of his career, hard to imagine him not sticking around for a couple more after for a Lions tour and one more world cup. He has the potential to become the most capped AB of all time. A much better outcome than him leaving NZ for a minimum of 3 years at the age of 27, unlikely to ever play for the ABs again, which would be the likely alternative.
2 Go to commentsJake White talks more sense than anything I've read in the last 5 years. Hope someone's listening.
9 Go to commentsThe Springboks tried going down the road of only picking home-based players and it was an unmitigated disaster in 2016 and 2017. Picking overseas-based players has been one of the main reason the Boks have done so well since 2018, not only because of the quality Rassie could call on, but because of the knowledge and experience those players brought into camp from England, France and Japan. With some of the big names playing abroad it also gave younger players in SA the chance to break through at franchise level. Would we have seen the emergence of a Ruan Nortje if RG and Lood were still at the Bulls? Not so sure. I understand why Jake would want to block players leaving since his job depends on good results but it’s an approach that would take Bok rugby back to the bad old days and no South African wants to see that.
9 Go to commentsExeter were thumped by 38 points. And they only had to hop on a train.
39 Go to commentsI am De Groot.
1 Go to commentsHad hoped you might write an article on this game, Nick. It’s a good one. Things have not gone as smoothly for ROG since beating Leinster last year at the Aviva in the CC final. LAR had the Top 14 Final won till Raymond Rhule missed a simple tackle on the excellent Ntamack, and Toulouse reaped the rewards of just staying in the fight till the death. Then the disruption of the RWC this season. LAR have not handled that well, but they were not alone, and we saw Pau heading the Top 14 table at one stage early season. I would think one of the reasons for the poor showing would have to be that the younger players coming through, and the more mature amongst the group outside the top 25/30, are not as strong as would be hoped for. I note that Romain Sazy retired at the end of last season. He had been with LAR since 2010, and was thus one of their foundation players when they were promoted to Top 14. Records show he ended up with 336 games played with LAR. That is some experience, some rock in the team. He has been replaced for the most part by Ultan Dillane. At 30, Dillane is not young, but given the chances, he may be a fair enough replacement for Sazy. But that won’be for more than a few years. I honestly know little of the pathways into the LAR setup from within France. I did read somewhere a couple of years ago that on the way up to Top 14, the club very successfully picked up players from the academies of other French teams who were not offered places by those teams. These guys were often great signings…can’t find the article right now, so can’t name any….but the Tadgh Beirne type players. So all in all, it will be interesting to see where the replacements for all the older players come from. Only Lleyd’s and Rhule from SA currently, both backs. So maybe a few SA forwards ?? By contrast, Leinster have a pretty clear line of good players coming through in the majority of positions. Props maybe a weak spot ? And they are very fleet footed and shrewd in appointing very good coaches. Or maybe it is also true that very good coaches do very well in the Leinster setup. So, Nick, I would fully concurr that “On the evidence of Saturday’s semi-final between the two clubs, the rebuild in the Bay of Biscay is going to take longer than it is on the east coast of Ireland”
11 Go to commentsWhat was the excuse for the other knockout blowouts then? Does the result not prove the Saints were just so much better? Wise call to put your eggs in one basket when you’ve got 2 comps simultaneously finishing.
39 Go to commentsReally hope Kuruvoli and his partner rock the Canes.
1 Go to commentsI wonder what impact Samson has had on their attack, as the team seems less prone to trundle it up the middle, take the tackle and then trundle it up again. I lost faith in the coach last year as the Rebelss looked like a 2nd/3rd rate South African team. I also disliked Gordon standing back, often ignored as the forward battle went on and on. Maybe its our Aussie way of not getting off our A***’s until the enemy is at the gate.
86 Go to commentsThanks for the write up. Great to see the Rebs winning, I am a little interested in how they will go against the remaining kiwi teams, I think they’ve only played Hurricanes and Highlanders but how great to see these players performing!! I also see Parling has a job beyond June 30! A good move by RA? Also how do you fix the Rebels previously scratchy defence?
86 Go to commentsbe smart - go black
14 Go to commentsNext week the Crusaders hopefully have Scott Barrett back. Will be great to have the captain back. Hopefully he will be the All Black captain as well.
12 Go to comments