You want to win everything you are in.

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

I didn't know Ian Smith myself!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.