First of all, I happen to think he was a pretty good player before he was selected to play for his country. I don't need to see him go play for Mexico to see that. But, absolutely, it can be a confidence-building experience.

He's been terrific. He looks to me like a very good baseball player and a very good number two hitter.

It's rare enough as an older generation player that you're 100% fit - there's always something niggling.

There have been a couple of things I've been involved in launching that have been a bit more public, but I've always had other things tipping away in the background.

As the summer moves on, there are Saturday nights when I come home and find friends I haven't even been out with sitting up in the hot tub.

I don't feel comfortable with the kind of celebrity that has come my way - and I'm not very good at it, either.

If you stick around long enough and you do enough of the right things, you get seen in a largely positive light.

I'm an eternal optimist.

I've always found when I was captain when other people were doing the talking for me, I didn't need to say as much, and when I did say one or two things, people tended to listen all the more.

You cannot say things one week and then behave differently.

I was quite small as a kid and maybe a little afraid physically. When I grew into myself, the realisation changed. That when you hurt yourself, it's transient; it doesn't stay forever.

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

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

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

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

I still get a great buzz from rugby.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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