Rugby is great for the soul, but terrible for the body. Dylan Hartley came to England, on his own, at 16, to build a life and learn the dark arts of front row play. Fourteen years later, Eddie Jones named him captain of England for his first Six Nations as England coach - and the...y won the Grand Slam. Jones and Hartley forged an unusually close coach-captain relationship. But when a persistent injury kept Hartley out of action in the run-up to the 2019 World Cup, his dream of leading England on the biggest stage was shattered. In Body and Soul, Hartley tells a story of hard men and harsh truths. This is rugby in the raw, a unique insight into the price of sporting obsession. Hartley addresses the modern scourge of mental illness in the game, an issue associated with ever-increasing physical and psychological demands on international players. He describes with brutal clarity the terrifying uncertainty of persistent concussion, and the fear of the long-term damage caused by a game he fell in love with as a boy in rural New Zealand. Dylan Hartley has survived old-school brawls, and thrived in the high pressure, high performance culture created by Eddie Jones. His honesty and insight into leadership reveals him as an occasionally bad boy with consistently good intentions. Body and Soul shows us his life and his sport, warts and all.
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