Although MLB is starved for quality starters, former Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel still does not have a job, and he won't take one for less than what he thinks he's worth.

"If you would've asked me on the first day of free agency, I would have said no way I'd be here on May 6," Keuchel told Yahoo Sports on Monday. "This was not the plan at all. I would love to be out there playing ball and helping a team win. Because, to my career at this point, I've done more winning than I have losing and at a much higher clip. So what team wouldn't want me to be out there? Am I the best at this point in time? No. But am I more than or better than some of the offers I've been given? Absolutely.

"That's not me being greedy. That's just my compensation in the market from what the analytical data is telling me. I didn't come up with this. The front offices came up with this. So now they're trying to tell me I'm less than what the analytical data is saying. How is that possible?"

Keuchel, 31, went 12-11 last season with a 3.74 ERA in a league-leading 34 starts for the Houston Astros. The left-hander won 14 games and had a 2.90 ERA during Houston's 2017 World Series-winning season. He won the Cy Young in 2015 with a 20-8 record, 2.48 ERA and American League-leading 232 innings pitched. So how does a workhorse lefty not have a job at this point in the season?

Keuchel's situation is complicated by the fact that he turned down a one-year, $17.9 million qualifying offer. That made him a free agent but also attached draft pick compensation to him. Former Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel is in the same boat. Any team that signs one of them before the draft has to give up a pick. After the June MLB draft, that goes away.

Keuchel says he has turned down numerous offers presented to him by agent Scott Boras.

"I told him no on numerous deals because it's about principle," Keuchel said. "It's about fair market value. And I wasn't getting that."

Many have argued that draft pick compensation hurts veterans because teams are wary to pay what it costs to land a player with an extensive résumé and lose out on young players in the draft as well. Keuchel didn't start out being a poster boy for the issue, but he's embracing the role now.

"When people tweet at me, saying, 'Hey, quit being the Le'Veon Bell of baseball,' it is a funny line. But he stood up for himself. He stood up for his well-being," Keuchel said to Yahoo, referring to the NFL star who sat out the 2018 season. "And I'm standing up for my well-being as well. It's about principle in both situations. Now, I'm not looking to sit out this whole year. I wasn't looking to sit out at all. But we are in this situation right now. I would love to sign tomorrow."

One of those teams could be the New York Yankees, whose starting ranks have been decimated by injuries. But at this point, the Bronx Bombers appear to be content to wait. In the meantime, Keuchel pitches to junior college players in California.

"My asking price and my due diligence is not just out of left field. It has come to me through my own career path, my own career numbers, and then what my market is valued at this point in time," he told the website. "To this point it hasn't been matched. It's been less than what it should be. And this is out of principle, what's going on right now. I can't speak for other players. It's a principle for me. I'm not asking for the world."

Here's one of the great contradictions in baseball: Modern reliever usage, most of us would agree, has made the game more static, more anonymous, more dawdling -- generally speaking, more boring.

But most of the good stuff also happens once the relievers are in the game. That's when baseball's biological diversity is most apparent, when its strategic adaptation is most in play, when the guys with the weirdest backstories are on screen, and when half the pitchers have You Can't Predict Baseball tattooed on their necks. It's also, generally, when the outcome of the game you're watching is most likely to be determined.

Following the sport requires following the bullpens, so let's survey the first month of the 2019 season in relief work.

The state of the closer

On Valentine's Day three months ago, three rebuilding teams -- the Royals, Orioles and Marlins -- announced they wouldn't necessarily name a closer this season. Not long after that, the Braves said they might use a committee to close games; the Twins were being "coy" about whether they would; and the defending champion Red Sox entered the season without a named closer. In the first two weeks of April, six Mariners relievers, and four Rays relievers, already had saves.

This is an annual spring ritual, and it typically goes nowhere. For various reasons, a handful of teams early in the season don't want to label one guy as better than their other guys; couple it with the longtime feud between statheads and traditional closer roles, and there will be a few teams that look like they might spearhead a movement. But almost inevitably, within a few saves one pitcher is collecting all of them for his team's bullpen, and that's that. You don't see that guy in the seventh inning anymore. You don't see anybody else getting up in the ninth.

Still, there are a lot of front-office executives who want the traditional closer role to go away -- to be absorbed into the larger trends toward nonhierarchical roster flexibility -- so it's never quite safe to assume this won't be the year. Even though it's never the year.

But maybe this is the year! Two years ago, the Ringer's Ben Lindbergh looked at each team's saves leader through April, and found that those 30 leaders accounted for just 79 percent of all saves. That was the lowest share in at least a decade, but there was also plenty of reason to wonder if it was a fluke. For one thing, it was just a small dip -- the average over the previous decade had been 84 percent -- and it came immediately after a 2016 season in which the reverse was true (saves leaders accounted for a higher percentage than any year in a decade). In 2018, the figure through April was 81 percent, still on the historical low end but a tick back up.

This year's 30 team leaders, though, accumulated less than 73 percent of all saves through April, a much lower share than in even the previous lowest year. This year, 83 relievers recorded at least one save by the end of April; the previous high in the 2010s was just 64 (last year), and the average in the decade was 54.

Clearly, teams are distributing their saves to more pitchers, and giving their closers less monopoly on the ninth inning. Some teams, meanwhile, still haven't named "a" closer, almost a quarter of the way through the season.

Three competitive teams -- the Red Sox, Rays and Twins -- have given multiple saves to at least their two best relievers. While the Marlins and Orioles appear to have fallen into predictable ninth innings (with Sergio Romo and Mychal Givens, respectively), the Royals have distributed their five saves to four pitchers. The Mariners haven't had a save opportunity in a while, but their distribution appears to still be undefined.

Of course, it'd be crazy to think the bulk of saves wouldn't end up in the hands of the few dozen best relievers. But in the ideal scenario, by making the closer role less rigid, the very best relievers would be available for a lot of those ninth innings and also other things: four-out saves, six-out saves, seventh-inning jams, eighth innings against the heart of the order, whatever. There's nothing inherently good about a closer by committee, unless it means the best relievers (traditionally, the "closers") can also be used successfully and aggressively elsewhere.

In teams' first 30 games this year, there were 26 saves of four outs or more, not counting three-plus-inning saves. (Those usually come in blowouts, when a mop-up pitcher finishes the final three innings or more with a huge lead.) That's the most at this point in the season this decade -- as many as there were in the first 30 days of 2012, 2013 and 2014 combined. It's only a modest jump from last year, which was only a modest jump from the year before, which was only a modest jump from 2016, but put all of those modest jumps together and it starts to add up. The Brewers' Josh Hader is the pacesetter here -- he has three saves of two or more innings -- but 19 different pitchers on 17 different teams have at least one of these extended saves.

It is definitely too early to overreact. Most teams are still using a traditional closer, and most traditional closers are still pitching in the limited way closers do: Of the closers who've held their jobs all season long, about half have never pitched before the ninth inning this year. Ninety percent of saves have been three outs or fewer. And there is arguably nobody in baseball being used in the extreme (and extremely successful) way Hader was used last year, or Andrew Miller was in 2016 and 2017 -- part closer, part multi-inning fireman available from the fifth inning on. But there are signs that this time, maybe, some of these teams that pledged this spring to try something different in the ninth inning really meant it.

The state of bullpenning and opening

There have been 23 games this year in which the starting pitcher went no more than three innings, threw no more than 50 pitches, and allowed no more than three runs. That's a decent set of filters to identify most bullpen games -- games in which a team started a pitcher with no intention of letting him work past an inning or two. About eight of those 23 games just had starters who got injured. So we have about 15 bullpen games this year.

Fifteen, is that a lot? One answer is, relatively speaking, yes. At this point last year, there had been two. (The Rays didn't debut the opener until mid-May.) In most years before that, there were essentially none. So 15 is a lot more than that.

But it's only 15 games, out of more than 1,000 games started. Nine of the 15 have been by the Rays, and of the other 29 teams only the Angels (with three of these games) have seemed interested in using the strategy regularly for even a single spot in the rotation this year.

An update on 'Relievers Are Bad'

A few weeks into the season, we noted that relievers were collectively pitching worse than starters, an unexpected twist. Since modern relief usage really took off in the late 1980s, there has never been a season in which relievers allowed a higher ERA than starters, and only one in which relievers' ERA wasn't at least 5 percent lower. At the time, relievers' ERA in 2019 was 3 percent higher than starters'.

That was early. It's still early, but less early. Relievers still have a worse ERA than starters, by about 1.6 percent. That's less weird than it used to be, but still weird. A record 381 pitchers made at least one relief appearance in the first 30 games of this season, up from 350 last year.

April's best reliever you'd never heard of

Miami's Nick Anderson is 28, had never pitched in the majors before this year, and was traded by the Twins to the Marlins (for a minor leaguer) in November. He was a 32nd-round pick who spent three years in the independent Frontier League, twice with ERAs over 6.00.

In March and April this year, he faced 51 major league batters and struck out 27 of them. He issued two intentional walks, but no unintentional walks: 27 strikeouts and no unintentional walks, in 13 innings. He had a 2.08 ERA.

He allowed five runs in his first outing in May.

The wildest ongoing reliever storyline

The Blue Jays' Elvis Luciano turned 19 in spring training this year and skipped four levels of the minor leagues to make his big league debut. He's on the team only because of, essentially, a loophole in the Rule 5 draft that made him available to any team that would commit to keeping him in the majors all season.

The Blue Jays are trying to make that happen, and even if it's probably a disaster waiting to happen they haven't completely buried him at the end of the bench: Luciano has appeared 11 times and thrown 15 innings. He has walked 14 batters in those innings. He also has a 4.20 ERA, better than the league-average reliever.

The Blue Jays still have him.

Cognitive behavioural therapist Lauren Povey outlines some techniques you can use to stop negative thoughts affecting your performance

The feelings of anxiety, stress and worry you experience before you compete can be caused and worsened by dysfunctional and ingrained thoughts you can have about yourself or the situation.

The negative thoughts and beliefs you hold such as, “I’m not sure I’m as good as my opponents” or “it’ll be embarrassing when I fall or get hurt”, can have an impact on the choices you make during competition. These thoughts can even have an effect on the future you have as an athlete.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a widely used treatment for anxiety and stress. It can help a person become aware of their unhelpful thought patterns and understand the entrenched beliefs that are causing them to think and feel this way. For athletes, it gives you the opportunity to respond differently to stress triggers, such as upcoming competitions.

How does CBT work?

CBT works to address and interrupt any negative thought patterns you have while giving you the opportunity to learn new ways of thinking.

You spend time monitoring your daily thoughts, feelings and behaviour, taking notice of any particular patterns and pinpointing any that are unhelpful, unrealistic and impacting on how you perform. You then work on changing these thought patterns through different strategies that allow you to replace negative thoughts with positive ones.

Typically, CBT is carried out in one-to-one sessions with a therapist. As a CBT therapist, I treat people with anxiety at Priory Hospital Chelmsford and I’ll now outline some of the different techniques that you can use.

Monitoring and replacing negative thoughts

After training or competition, make a long list of any negative thoughts that you had. Maybe you thought “I’m so slow, I can’t keep up with any of the other athletes.”

Carefully reflect on why this thought is unhelpful and what will happen if you continue to think that way, and jot these unwanted outcomes down. Will you perform at a lower standard or will it cause you to lose faith in yourself and the sport?

Then, challenge the initial thought you had in order to demonstrate to yourself that it’s unrealistic. You know your level of skill and the amount of experience you have. You also know everything is relative – some people will be faster than you and some people will be slower.

Next, in response to your initial negative thoughts, write down a more positive one you could have had instead. If you thought you wouldn’t be able to keep up with the others, you could write down “I’m glad I have the opportunity to hone my skills around such good athletes” or “I will make sure I learn a lot from these athletes”. Rather than impacting on your self-esteem like the negative thought, the reframed thought will give you motivation and spur you on to perform well.

Like anything this technique will take practice. But as you do it more and more, you will notice that it starts to come naturally in moments that have previously caused you to feel stressed or anxious.

Visualising success instead of failure

In the lead-up to a training session or performance visualise the achievement that you want. This will act as a non-verbal instruction, training your body to act confidently in moments when you otherwise would have been nervous.

By spending time visualising success as opposed to failure, you work to build up your experience and confidence, which in turn can put a stop to you worrying about possible things that could go wrong.

Positive self-talk rather than negative inner dialogue

When you’re training or competing and someone performs better than you, do you spur yourself on or shoot yourself down? If your inner dialogue tells you that you can’t do something, that something will go wrong, or that it is too hard, work on swapping this for positive self-talk.

Have a category of phrases you can use in different phases of the performance. If you find yourself indulging in negative self-talk before you perform or compete, work on swapping thoughts such as “this will be too hard” for something positive and importantly believable like “work hard” or “I can do this” to focus and motivate you.

If you slip into negative self-talk during the performance or competition and start thinking, for example, “I can’t push any harder”, practice a simple mantra such as “go, go, go” to inspire yourself as opposed to clouding yourself with self-doubt. Also have instructional self-talk available for moments you are concerned about, such as “focus on your feet” or “light, soft, relax”.

Positive self-talk should also continue after you have finished. Don’t instantly become critical – instead take time to praise yourself for any achievements you made. Even if things didn’t quite go to plan, take the time to review and to remember that any small step you make is progress. Again, over time and with repetition, this can become a habit that sticks, which will help to improve your self-esteem, motivation and energy.

It is important to note that if your feelings of worry, anxiety or stress are persisting, worsening, or are having an impact on
your day-to-day life, you should seek help from a medical professional. They will be able to offer advice on the best course of action and determine if you need any further professional treatment.

British number one Johanna Konta went out of the Madrid Open in the second round, losing to Romanian world number three Simona Halep.

Two-time Madrid champion Halep, 27, wrapped up a 7-5 6-1 win in one hour and 30 minutes.

On Sunday, world number 47 Konta, 27, lost the Morocco Open title to Maria Sakkari in her first final on clay.

Halep, who won the Madrid title in 2016 and 2017, will play Slovakia's Viktoria Kuzmova in the third round.

"I feel like I started playing at a really good level," Konta told BBC Sport.

"I thought I found my footing reasonably quickly. As you would expect playing against someone like Simona, she's going to rally back and what she does incredibly well is compete and really work her way into the points.

"I definitely created chances in that first set - unfortunately I couldn't capitalise. And then I think I just ran out of a little bit of steam there in the second set."

Konta was the first to go up a break, leading 2-1 before easing through two service games to take a 4-2 lead.

She found herself at break point to reach 5-2 but Halep managed to hold serve, going on to break Konta to level the scores.

At 5-5, Halep withstood three break points and when leading 6-5, managed to wrap up the set on her fifth set point.

The French Open champion asserted her dominance in the second set, allowing Konta only two points in the first four games.

Konta broke her opponent's serve to get a game on the board, but Halep broke back immediately before serving out the match.

Former British number one Andy Murray has been offered a wildcard to play at Queen's Club next month and will decide "nearer the time" if he will take it.

The three-time Grand Slam champion, 31, had hip surgery in January.

Murray said in March he was pain-free but rated his chances of playing in the Wimbledon singles at "less than 50%" and has not played competitively since.

The Fever-Tree Championships at Queen's in London will start on Monday, 17 June - two weeks before Wimbledon begins.

Current British top two Kyle Edmund and Cameron Norrie will feature at the tournament, as will last year's beaten Wimbledon and US Open finalists Kevin Anderson and Juan Martin del Potro.

Defending champion Marin Cilic, three-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka, Australian Nick Kyrgios and former Wimbledon finalist Milos Raonic are also named on the entry list.

A wildcard is being held in reserve for five-time winner Murray, who Queen's say will let tournament director Stephen Farrow know nearer the time of the event if he is fit enough to play.

Murray broke down in tears at the Australian Open in January, saying in his pre-tournament news conference that he planned to retire after this year's Wimbledon because of pain in his hip.

However, he said the first Grand Slam of 2019 could prove to be the last tournament of his career.

After a gutsy first-round five-set defeat by Spain's Roberto Bautista Agut, Murray appeared to soften his stance by telling the Melbourne crowd he hoped to see them again next year.

In his post-match news conference, he said he was considering the resurfacing operation primarily to improve his quality of life.

Murray had the hip resurfacing operation - which keeps more of the damaged bone than a hip replacement, smoothing the ball down and covering it with a metal cap - in London on 28 January.

American doubles player Bob Bryan had the same surgery last year and returned to action, alongside twin brother Mike, five months later. No tennis player has competed in singles after having the operation.

Should Murray compete, it will be the first time since 2006 that Britain has had three direct entrants at Queen's.

BBC Sport will have live coverage from the west London club across television, radio and online.

Referees Nigel Owens and Wayne Barnes have been selected to officiate at their fourth Rugby World Cup.

Welshman Owens, 47, took charge of the 2015 final between New Zealand and Australia at Twickenham.

Barnes, 40, is joined by fellow English referee Luke Pearce, who will be appearing in his first tournament.

Four Frenchmen have been selected among the 12-strong group of referees while the host nation Japan has just one assistant referee, Shuhei Kubo.

England-based Matthew Carley and Karl Dickson have been selected as assistant referees along with Ireland RFU official Andrew Brace.

Owens and Barnes will match the achievement of Welsh referee Derek Bevan to officiate at four World Cups.

"I am very excited and honoured to be doing another World Cup, a tournament which is the pinnacle of everybody associated with rugby," said Owens.

"It is my fourth World Cup and in all probability it will be my last as a referee.

"It is something special as well with it being staged in Japan and it will be the first one in Asia."

Referees: Wayne Barnes (England), Luke Pearce (England), Jérôme Garcès (France), Romain Poite (France), Pascal Gauzere (France), Mathieu Raynal (France), Nigel Owens (Wales), Jaco Peyper (South Africa), Ben O'Keeffe (New Zealand), Paul Williams (New Zealand), Nic Berry (Australia) and Angus Gardner (Australia).

Assistant referees: Matthew Carley (England, reserve referee), Karl Dickson (England), Andrew Brace (Ireland), Brendon Pickerill (New Zealand), Federico Anselmi (Argentina), Shuhei Kubo (Japan) and Alex Ruiz (France).

TMOs: Graham Hughes (England), Rowan Kitt (England), Ben Skeen (New Zealand) and Marius Jonker (South Africa).

Bath have confirmed that former captain Stuart Hooper will become director of rugby as part of a new coaching team.

Hooper, 37, replaces Todd Blackadder, who had been with the club since 2016.

Neal Hatley will return as forwards and defence coach after helping England at the World Cup, while Luke Charteris is to become a specialist line-out coach.

"We are building a system based on who we are, how we play, how we train, and how we develop," said chief executive Tarquin McDonald.

"We will always be judged on the 80 minutes each weekend, but the level of rigour that surrounds the design of our rugby department and training programme is what we believe will deliver consistent performances and successful results."

Meanwhile, Girvan Dempsey is to continue in his role as attack and backs coach and Andy Rock has been confirmed in the role of performance director.

Bath are sixth in the Premiership table after beating Wasps 29-17 on Sunday.

Israel Folau has been found guilty of a "high level breach" of Rugby Australia's player code of conduct after he said "hell awaits" gay people in a social media post.

A three-person panel who presided over his hearing will now consider what punishment the 30-year-old will face.

His RA contract was terminated in April but he requested a hearing.

The Waratahs full-back, contracted with RA until 2022, escaped punishment for similar comments last year.

The panel will take written submissions from both parties before deciding Folau's sanction.

Folau - who has won 73 caps and was expected to play at this year's World Cup in Japan - gave evidence on Saturday, with RA chief executive Raelene Castle and Waratahs chief executive Andrew Hore also appearing before the panel.

Wallabies coach Michael Cheika has said Folau is unlikely to be selected for Australia again.

In addition to his rugby union career, Folau has also played professional rugby league and Australian rules football.

In April, Australian rugby league's governing body ruled out Folau returning to the NRL.

British and Irish Lions lock Richie Gray and Worcester fly-half Duncan Weir have been left out of Scotland's 42-man Rugby World Cup training squad.

English-born centre Rory Hutchinson earns a first call-up by coach Gregor Townsend after an impressive season with Northampton Saints.

Glasgow Warriors hooker Grant Stewart and Scarlets forward Blade Thomson, both also uncapped, are recalled.

Edinburgh back-row John Barclay is included as he eyes a third finals.

A forward and back will be added as Townsend gives players the chance to "play their way into the group", which will eventually be cut to a 31-man group heading to the finals in Japan.

Townsend said: "We made a conscious decision to keep squad numbers low, which enables us to do more work with those most likely to be on the plane to Japan.

"There are of course a number of very good players who have missed out - players who have been unlucky with injuries this year or haven't hit form at the right time - while others are unlucky to lose out on some very close decisions."

Gray, capped 62 times for Scotland, does not make the squad despite the 29-year-old having recovered from a lengthy back injury to feature for European semi-finalists and French league leaders Toulouse.

The 27-year-old Weir has played 27 times for his country but is also not included along with centre Alex Dunbar, the 30-cap 29-year-old having been on loan to Newcastle Falcons from Glasgow Warriors.

Pro14 title-chasing Glasgow contribute 17 players to the training squad, while Edinburgh have 13.

Just under half - 14 - of those named featured in the 31-man squad that reached the quarter-final of the 2015 tournament in England.

Townsend will initially work in smaller groups to accommodate post-season breaks and players involved in the knockout stages of domestic or European Cup competition.

The majority of players will then be given three weeks off and will return from mid-June to intensify pre-season preparations in Edinburgh.

There will be three pre-season residential camps in Scotland and a hot weather camp in Portugal before four home-and-away summer Test matches against Georgia and France in August and early September.

"As it's likely to be hot and humid during the tournament, our warm-weather training camps in Portugal and Nagasaki, as well two Test matches in the heat of Nice and Tbilisi, should be invaluable," Townsend added.

Scotland training squad

Forwards

John Barclay (Edinburgh), Simon Berghan (Edinburgh), Jamie Bhatti (Glasgow Warriors), Magnus Bradbury (Edinburgh), Fraser Brown (Glasgow Warriors), Allan Dell (Edinburgh), Matt Fagerson (Glasgow Warriors), Zander Fagerson (Glasgow Warriors), Grant Gilchrist (Edinburgh), Gary Graham (Newcastle Falcons), Jonny Gray (Glasgow Warriors), Stuart McInally (Edinburgh), Willem Nel (Edinburgh), Gordon Reid (London Irish), Jamie Ritchie (Edinburgh), Sam Skinner (Exeter Chiefs), Grant Stewart (Glasgow Warriors), Josh Strauss (Sale Sharks), Blade Thomson (Scarlets), Ben Toolis (Edinburgh), George Turner (Glasgow Warriors), Hamish Watson (Edinburgh), Ryan Wilson (Glasgow Warriors).

Backs

Darcy Graham (Edinburgh), Nick Grigg (Glasgow Warriors), Chris Harris (Newcastle Falcons), Adam Hastings (Glasgow Warriors), Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors), George Horne (Glasgow Warriors), Pete Horne (Glasgow Warriors), Rory Hutchinson (Northampton Saints), Huw Jones (Glasgow Warriors), Sam Johnson (Glasgow Warriors), Blair Kinghorn (Edinburgh), Greig Laidlaw (Clermont Auvergne), Sean Maitland (Saracens), Byron McGuigan (Sale Sharks), Ali Price (Glasgow Warriors), Henry Pyrgos (Edinburgh), Finn Russell (Racing 92), Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors), Duncan Taylor (Saracens).

England back row James Haskell is to retire at the end of the season.

The 34-year-old, who has won 77 caps and played in the past two World Cups, has struggled with ankle and toe problems with Northampton this season.

He joined Wasps in 2002 and spent seven years with the club before moving to Stade Francais, the Ricoh Black Rams in Japan and Super Rugby's Highlanders.

Haskell returned to Wasps in 2013 and moved to Saints last summer, but has only played four times this season.

"I have loved every minute of my career in rugby and feel very privileged to have played with and against some exceptional players," said Haskell, who also toured with the British and Irish Lions to New Zealand in 2017.

"This next chapter was supposed to go a very different way, however that is the nature of professional sport. I've never spent so much time injured in my entire career, but I'm doing everything I can to help the squad here until my contract ends.

"Retiring is obviously a really difficult decision for me to make; professional rugby has been the centre of my life for such a long time now and while it's weird to imagine living without it, I look to the future with huge excitement."

'One of the game's great characters'

Haskell won three Six Nations titles with England and was part of the team that won the Grand Slam in 2016 before starring in the side that whitewashed Australia on tour that summer.

He played in England's 2011 World Cup quarter-final loss to France and was part of the Wasps side that won the 2007 Heineken Cup final.

England head coach Eddie Jones said: "It was a privilege to coach him, but also great fun. He's what I'd describe as a glue player - someone who always tries to bring a squad together.

"His tour to Australia in 2016 sticks in my mind. He was absolutely outstanding on that tour, amazingly physical, uncompromising and just totally dominant.

"Despite injuries preventing him from achieving his goals this season, he should be remembered for a great career and as someone who never gave less than 100% for club and country.

"Not only a superb player, but also one of the game's great characters; rugby will be poorer without the old fella."

Analysis

BBC rugby union correspondent Chris Jones

Haskell's dream was to bow out after a successful Rugby World Cup in Japan, but - as he acknowledges - sport doesn't always do fairytales.

Either way he can reflect on an outstanding career, where he not only achieved a huge amount on the pitch, but broadened his horizons off it.

And while as an international player he perhaps didn't have the consistency of say a Richard Hill, Haskell did produce some remarkable displays at the highest level.

His individual performances against Wales in Cardiff in 2015, and in Australia a year later, will go down in English rugby folklore.