I had come across a few sports psychologists, and I had no time for nearly all of them. I just don't think they work in a team environment.

I've never bought a sports car.

Dressing rooms can be vicious places, in the best possible way, from a slagging point of view.

When you talk to family and friends, they can't tell you anything from an impartial point of view because they have a vested interest in you.

Everyone has tests in their life. They come in lots of different forms. I had two or three together, which definitely challenged me as a person and as a sportsman. The big thing is how you react to those situations. You want to come out positively at the other end, and that's what I focused on doing.

I would always treat my attacking game as the more natural part. With defence, you have to get yourself in positions to understand the game and understand situations and that might not be as natural a thing.

You never sit on your laurels. It is always a case of trying to work on your deficiencies as much as working on your strengths.

Games bring another level out in you. There is no way you can train to the same intensity when you are playing a game. It is just impossible. Your head won't allow you to do it. Because the adrenalin of a game and the importance of it steps it up to another level.

I need to worry about the things that I am in control of.

I have always played into the belief that you are only ever borrowing the jersey; you never own the jersey because someone has gone before you and there is going to be someone after you, so it's a case of giving the jersey maximum respect.

The victory is always sweeter... winning things with friends.

The 2001 tour to Australia would have been a great highlight in my career if the Lions had won the series. That might sound strange because it was a great tour in many ways, but, for me, the more time goes by, the less of a career highlight it becomes, and just more of a frustration.

I tell you one you straight off in Scotland - Nick de Luca. I don't see his name quoted, but I've played against Nick quite a lot and he is a good player - one of the trickiest centres I've played against.

You go into the Lions camp with preconceived ideas about players and teams and then find guys are actually very different, and the beauty of the Lions is that all those characters are moulded into it. I find that exciting.

I was exposed to the gym at about 28. I never had a huge love or appetite for it - it was just a means to an end.

I get burnt in the sun, so there's no point me getting pecs for when I take my shirt off in the summer.

I'm not privy to the English set-up, but at the academies in Ireland, there is a huge focus on the weights room as opposed to whether they can throw a 10-metre pass on the run. They should be rugby players becoming athletes, not athletes becoming rugby players.

The Polynesian guys are pretty strong without going to the gym.

I have ambitions to set records which will be hard to chase down, like getting more than 100 caps for Ireland.

I enjoy training so much, sometimes I don't want it to stop.

It feels great to be a two-time Six Nations winner.

If you can beat New Zealand, then you're probably going to win the World Cup.

Aaron Cruden and Beauden Barrett have both been decent, but Dan Carter takes it on to a different level, and he kicks his goals better than both of them.

Before there was any chance to go to England, I changed schools, and it was rugby from there on in.

I think my form dipped after the Six Nations in 2007, from the World Cup onwards.

There is no point winning the semi if you don't win the final. It's as simple as that. No one will remember a big semifinal if you lose the final, so you have to do it all again.

If you start thinking about retirement in six months' time, you're already there.

I just want to concentrate on my rugby and enjoy it and live in the moment.

In your mid-20s, you think you'll go on for eternity. Then a point comes where you realise that's not going to be the case.

You have perspective when little people come into your life. You take the best things you have and let them overshadow your disappointment.

I was a football fan before I became a rugby fan.

Growing up, I supported Manchester United, and my hero was Mark Hughes.

Team sports are very important for shaping personalities. It's important that kids understand the mentality behind playing team sports and playing for one another and playing with friends.

If you can be a good role model for people, well, great. You try and live your sporting life and the rest of your life as well as you can, and if it's something that people admire, well, fantastic. I don't sit at home and think about it too much, though - there's plenty of other things in my life going on.

I didn't know Ian Smith myself!

I've been a professional rugby player all my life; I don't really know anything different.

You want to win everything you are in.

When you are captain, you are never speaking for yourself.

I don't care that people thought I was one way for my whole career because now that I am not attached to a team, I can have my own opinion, I can have my own voice. I can link myself to my own thought process rather than a generic message most teams try to get across.

You can't rely on your defence to win a World Cup.

There is still a big onus to be coached. I understand the best teams don't need a huge amount of coaching, but that's when a coach should decide not to do coaching.

Being recognised by Guinness World Records in their 60th year is a real honour. It's also a real privilege for me to be positioned beside such sporting greats.

When you've done something for more than a third of your life, your whole adult life, and then all of a sudden you're going to have to switch off and say, 'No more,' you want to grasp as much of it and enjoy the last few years of it as much as you can. Because you can't get those years back.

Your name or what you've done on the rugby pitch is not going to carry you through for the rest of your life. I realise I'm going to have to eventually do something else, and that does frighten me a little bit.

I still get a great buzz from rugby.

I don't really want to be the centre of attention.

In a team situation, I think the players are more inclined to give the answer they believe the psychologist is looking for rather than maybe being totally honest.

I have interests outside of rugby and have been cultivating them for when I do decide to hang up the boots.

The big upside to being captain is it's a huge honour, but the downside is that there is definitely extra pressure.

I'm very much a glass-half-full person.