I’ve always played sport. I played rugby, I was involved in athletics, I played cricket… I’m an outdoors kind of guy. – Jai Courtney
I have interests outside of rugby and have been cultivating them for when I do decide to hang up the boots. – Brian O’Driscoll
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. – Brian O’Driscoll
Before there was any chance to go to England, I changed schools, and it was rugby from there on in. – Brian O’Driscoll
I’m always embarrassed by those rugby player autobiographies which get written by journalists. – Peter Jackson
Britain has bred many great explorers, but they seem to get so little coverage compared to soccer and rugby players. – Lewis Gordon Pugh
I thought I’d be a professional rugby player or go to university and get some degree in construction. – Luke Bracey
I was playing rugby and the other games English school children do, and there was an event in which races were run, and I won these by a considerable margin. – Roger Bannister
I wasn’t picked for any of the sports teams at school because I was half the size of everyone else, but now everyone assumes I must have been some sort of rugby player. – Will Poulter
I passed the 11-plus, but it was decided that I should take the Common Entrance exam to Monmouth School, the nearest independent. I was never entirely comfortable there, as they didn’t have girls, and they played rugby instead of football. – Saul David
