Brian O'Driscoll

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

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

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

“You want to win everything you are in.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“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 didn't know Ian Smith myself!”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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'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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”