James Haskell has given a brutal assessment after England’s 24-15 defeat to Ireland at Twickenham.
“It happens in professional sport. The margins are very small. I’m not making excuses, but it is,” he said.
“The difference between getting a result where everyone’s blowing smoke up your bum versus disappointment.
“Today we were off. We were off last week and we’re just not good enough at the moment. That’s the difference. We’ve got to go away and work very hard.
“What people would have guessed [would happen], that’s not reality. That’s sport for you. That’s what happens and you’ve just got to get on with it.
#ENGvIRE | James Haskell on how England can turn around a disappointing run of form: https://t.co/2yduF1JGGb pic.twitter.com/sJ4d5NiYm4
— England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) March 17, 2018
“We’ll take our medicine. It’s a massive learning curve. It’s a massive character assessment.
“We’ve all been there. In 2015 you [the media] were ready to burn us alive and that was it. Six months later we’d turned it around.
“Rugby and professional sport, it’s the flip of a coin.”