Opinion: James Haskell disrespects women’s rugby and fails to apologise in disappointing exchange

The page for the podcast, hosted by Haskell, Mike Tindall and Alex Payne, posted a graphic displaying the most capped England front-row forwards and listed were Jason Leonard (114), Dylan Hartley (97), Dan Cole (95), Joe Marler (79) and Steve Thompson (73).

On the contrary to what this post says, Rocky Clark easily tops this list and with 137 caps, she is the most capped England international full stop, whether that be male or female.

Bristol Bears and Barbarians loosehead prop Simi Pam pointed this out to the page in the comments, adding: “Please stop disrespecting the women like this. Because the way you’ve named this list, we know Rocky Clark tops it. Please do better @goodbadrugby.”

Pam, a full-time doctor as well as a Premier 15s player, was correct as the post excluded the achievements of the phenomenal Clark purely because she was a woman.

You could argue that this is being pedantic but at what point do we stop treating the male sport as the norm?

People need to stop excluding women from the national conversation and fair play to The Good, The Bad & The Rugby, because they corrected themselves… but not before a Haskell kick-off in the comments.

The former Wasp had the chance to put his hands up and admit his page was wrong, but instead of this, he proceeded to argue that his show had “done more to champion women’s rugby than anyone else”.

It seems that Haskell failed to recognise the women that formed their own unions, sold houses to fund World Cups and actually played/been involved in the sport from more than a podcasting point of view with The Good, The Scaz and The Rugby hosted by Emily Scarratt.

The whole ordeal was quite frankly disappointing as a so-called champion of women’s rugby couldn’t stoop so low as