Pain for Wasps as Haskell muscles in

James Haskell is on his way back to London from foreign fields – he will rejoin Wasps in good time for the new club season after productive spells in Japan and New Zealand.

However, if he presses the right buttons on his return to England colours against South Africa in Port Elizabeth tomorrow, the struggling former champions can expect to lose him to international business for a significant proportion of the Premiership campaign.

Haskell ended last year’s World Cup in All Black territory on a disappointing note. One of England’s better players during the early stages of the tournament, he lost his place in the back row when the captain Lewis Moody satisfied medical staff that he was fit enough to last 80 minutes of top-level rugby. After confirming plans to play off-shore contrary to Rugby Football Union wishes, it was widely assumed Haskell would plummet down the Test pecking order. Instead, he has forced his way back into the red-rose mix at the earliest opportunity.

Chris Robshaw’s injury problems – the England captain aggravated a thumb injury during the narrow defeat against the Springboks in Johannesburg six days ago and was forced out of this final contest of the trip – may have opened the door for Haskell, but he would have pushed hard for a place in the squad anyway. The tourists need all the muscular dynamism they can get if they are to cope with the threat posed by the in-form South African No 8 Pierre Spies and the tough newcomer Jacques Potgieter, and Haskell is as powerful as anyone in the party.

“We need physicality, both in our carrying game and in our stopping game,” Lancaster said after picking Haskell alongside two inexperienced back-row partners in Tom Johnson, the Exeter flanker, and Thomas Waldrom, the New Zealand-born No 8 who won his first cap off the bench at Ellis Park. “When we’re faced with big guys coming round the corner, as we will be in this game, we must have good people knocking them back.”

Lancaster had not worked with Haskell before this trip and was not quite sure what to expect from a player who has never been one of life’s shrinking violets and was not guaranteed to fit in easily with the new coaching team’s view of the world. But the super-confident forward from Windsor has prospered since joining his countrymen in South Africa. If Lancaster was not entirely convinced by his performance in the first midweek game in Kimberley, his reservations had nothing to do with the 27-year-old’s attitude.