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.
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 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.
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.
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.
