Quotes from James Haskell

If anyone out there is mildly curious about rugby, I'd recommend a weekend spent watching the Six Nations. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

People think of rugby players as being tough but it's another thing to stand in front of someone and get kicked, punched, taken down. In rugby you have two contact sessions a week and you play a game on the weekend.

At most grounds you're not particularly conscious of the crowd but in Cardiff, with the roof closed against a good Welsh team, the noise is impossible to ignore. It can be loud enough to put you off your game and the Welsh undoubtedly possess some of the most passionate fans in the world.

To get any win, especially against a Welsh side, is very satisfying.

People talk a lot about the Welsh fans but English supporters are also among the world's best.

I want to do presenting, I love DJing, I love writing but none of it's a guaranteed job so it's still very scary.

To stay at the elite end of professional sport you need to show an awful lot of dedication.

Frittatas are delicious, convenient, and can even be eaten cold - perfect if you're working against the clock to make your morning meeting.

I've been written off more times than some of the government's tax returns but I just keep plodding along.

As a player you have to look after your body because no one else will. I'd rather be proactive than kowtow to everyone and be injured all the time.

I was diagnosed with ADD when I was 14. Weirdly enough, I then learnt, through doing different things, to concentrate.

If your form dips as a back-row forward, it is best to address the areas you know you're going to be heavily involved in.

We can't have tech just for the sake of it. To maximise the potential of technology solutions you have to understand how to use them.

When I started my professional rugby career, in 2002, there was one guy filming training if you were lucky.

Going to a final and winning is the best thing in life, and it makes rugby no longer a job. It makes it fun.

We owe it to players, young and old, to train them thoroughly so that they can take full advantage of the insights that tech offers them. And what is true in sport also applies more widely to business.

If you've got aspirations to be tested to the absolute maximum you want to be in the starting line-up.

My best games for England were under Eddie Jones. Eddie got the best out of me. He understood that I needed an arm around me, needed my tyres pumped up.

Unfortunately, there tends to be an easy way of doing things in life and the Haskell way. As a 12-year-old I knocked my front teeth out while chasing a friend in the rain. I'm the type who offers to serve wine at drinks parties and accidentally pours it down one of the guests.

It was so important to have stuff outside of rugby so you have a life balance. I took a lot of criticism for that earlier in my career and thank God I ignored what everyone else said and did what I was always going to do.

I like my boxing and jiu jitsu and that kind of stuff and one thing I always enjoyed from an early age was shooting. My godfather got me into it. It started with airguns and shotguns and that kind of stuff.

Statistically, there have to be more gay men in rugby than we know about and I would hate for them to be going home from training and feeling depressed or feeling like they need to live a lie.

Good nutrition must be at the core of all that you do training and health wise.

As a schoolboy I can recall playing three games a week and not even feeling it.