James Haskell on his alternative DJ career: When they start reacting well, it’s the best feeling in the world

Like him or loathe him, the resilience and never-say-die attitude of James Haskell has to be praised. Not for the first time in his career the flanker looked down and out after being dropped from the England squad that toured South Africa, having ended the Premiership regular season without a club for next campaign.

Yet three months down the line, Haskell has rejected offers abroad to fight for his place in Eddie Jones’ squad, and once more finds himself back in the England squad.

“With any international set-up, you are never quite sure if you are in or out,” Haskell said after the three-day training camp in south-west London over the weekend. “Eddie spoke to me before the tour to say I would be rested and for the first time in my career I have had five weeks off so I maximised that.”

Unsurprisingly, though, the 33-year-old rugby player-turned-fitness-fanatic-turned-DJ finds it difficult to just do nothing. So those five weeks were spent getting ready to join Northampton Saints after more than 15 years with Wasps – minus four years travelling the globe to taste rugby abroad – and undertaking a music course to prepare him for his biggest gig yet: performing in front of 4,000 farmers in a field.

Asked when the last time he switched off, Haskell admits: “It's not something I am very good at. I don't think I have ever done it. I am always busying myself – fitness, DJ'ing, extra rugby stuff, driving to London to get physio – whatever. But that's kind of how I relax. My notes app on my phone is full of bright ideas – it's like Only Fools and Horses – this time next year I'll be a millionaire!”

The 77-cap forward added: “I have been away a lot, eaten a lot of food and done some fun training. I DJ'd a few times, did a music production course with Toolroom, which was good, and then just looked after my body and tried to switch off. Having been at Wasps for 12 years in total I wanted to make sure I started at Saints in a good place.

“I love DJ'ing and got the opportunity to do a 12-week music production course online and loved it. But I am as about as musically talented as a house brick. I made a track, but I don't think it will be No 1 any time soon. I did my personal training course too, busying myself to my fiancée’s annoyance, but I loved that music course.

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“Like most things in life I got very into it and stressed when I knew I wasn't making a No 1. I have my own mixes and put them up. I DJ'd for 4000 young farmers, headlining that in Blackpool – it was incredible and probably the closest thing to playing a game. You walk out at Twickenham to 80,000 people and don't notice the crowd. When you walk out [to DJ], I underestimated this, there were 4,000 people and me, and their whole night was being defined whether I played good or bad music.

“When they start reacting well, it's the best feeling in the world.”

But the DJ’ing will have to go back on hold for now as Haskell looks to hit the ground running with Northampton to ensure this latest recall is not a brief stay. Jones will gather his squad again next month before preparations for the autumn internationals begin, where the squad will be cut from 44 to 30-odd. If he wants to play for England again, he will need to be in the top 23 players available to Jones in November, and given who was around him at this training camp, that will take some doing.

As if the arrival of Brad Shields wasn’t enough, Jones called in Saracens flanker Michael Rhodes to the squad after he qualified on residency grounds three years after his arrival on these shores. Tom Curry meanwhile used the tour of South Africa to cement his status as England's current first-choice openside flanker, while fit-again Sam Underhill “looks in good fettle”, according to Jones.

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With more competition for places in the back-row than ever before during Jones’ tenure, does Haskell feel the heat?

“I think it's very naive as there is no end to competition and you have to become comfortable with that,” he said. “It's a conveyor belt and there will be players at the end of this season who feature. I just worry about myself. I respect people, but you have to be in competition with yourself every day. If someone players better or the coaches think are better, that's one thing, but if you are doing all you can to be as good as you can be then that's all you have to worry about. I wasn't pressed up against the TV watching every moment in South Africa and I didn't read the sports section, no offence.

“I just think that it is down to how you play. How you play, how you perform, staying fit and do you deliver what you are supposed to deliver? No team and no player is successful by trying to use their weaknesses to win. It is about doing the things you do well. As long as you work on them and manage areas of the game that aren’t as good then you will go well. If you spend all your time worrying about your weaknesses and not focussing on our positives then the positives suddenly become weaknesses.

“For me that is the most important thing. Me sitting at home and worrying about Brad Shields, or Rhodesy or Tom Curry is just going to do nothing. I am sure they are not worried about me.”