You've to celebrate the good days because there are brutal days that make the good ones sweet.

Practise things you're good at. Keep on top of things you're not so good at, but be world-class at your best. Never think, 'I'm very good at this and that, I can leave those for a bit.'

What do you remember about Jason Robinson? His feet. Not how improved he was under a high ball or his kicking skills. Everyone remembers those feet. He could go round you in a phone box.

If you stop doing a skill you've done for years for any period of time, there's an adjustment period to get it back. In anything you do. Motor skills won't work as fast, because repetition is everything.

Until you win a series, it's difficult to place yourself in that elite group of great Lions players. It's not enough to produce one-off performances or be nearly-men.

There's ego in all of us rugby players.

Timmy Horan was a childhood hero. He was a great distributor, elusive, good stepper, very physical, defensively very sound. What a rounded player.

It's happened a couple of times in training when I hyper-extend my back. Some facet joints send all the muscles in my lower back and lumbar-spine into spasm.

One thing I learnt early on my career is that personal gratification takes second place.

My missus knows to leave me alone.

Just because you lost your last game doesn't mean you change anything.

I used to love looking at a recipe, getting all the bits and pieces in the shops, getting them ready and prepared... I don't really have the time to do that anymore.

I'm fairly adventurous with my eating. I've tried kangaroo, and Moreton Bay bugs, which are a kind of lobster, are so good.

My nutritional knowledge is good enough to figure out what's good, what's bad, and where my leeway is.

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

I found in the past when I did a bit of punditry, I was very conscious of not saying anything negative about people I played against, because players are elephants and they remember when someone says something - I stored things for years and just waited for my opportunity.

A physical therapist does some unbelievable stretching with me.

That's what happens in the world. You get offered superior contracts.

People talk about loyalty of players to clubs. But in the everyday world, you don't see people being loyal to their company when they're getting offered considerably better deals elsewhere.

I'm very happy to have been a one-club man, but I wouldn't shoot down guys who have gone off and played in multiple clubs either because, essentially, it is an earning that people are after.

I would say I thrive in a competitive environment.

I've got my head fixed on the next part of life. I know there will be an adjusting period of just not being a rugby player for a while, and over that period I'll get my head around what the next challenge involves.

Rugby gave me a confidence. I was quite shy and relatively timid, but it gave me the confidence to be a little bit more out-going and back myself a bit more.

The great thing about playing team sport is you win and lose together, and the pain is never as bad when you share it.

I had massive admiration for lots of players. Richard Hill would be up there, along with Martin Johnson.

As you get older, the defeats become more painful. They definitely hurt more.

Rugby takes its toll.

For me, it took five years to understand what professionalism meant. But I'm more settled now. I'm married, life changes, and I've been lucky in managing my injuries.

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.