I loved playing rugby so much. I would have played rugby every day if I could have. I loved being a player so much, I don't know if I could sit on the side, with the passion I have and try and influence without being on there.
I loved playing video games when I was younger, loved playing with Legos - the tech nerd, that was me for sure.
I really enjoyed playing rugby. I loved the camaraderie with the other athletes. It was kind of like fighting. Team fighting.
One of the highlights of my career was playing first class rugby for my province, which was Wellington. Another highlight was playing first class rugby with my brothers. Not many brothers get to do that. I can't explain what it felt like to be out there, playing with them. It was a great feeling.
I know my dad would have loved me to have played rugby. He was a No. 8. I started off playing centre and ended up playing at the back of the scrum, No. 8 as well, just picking it up and running with it.
I was playing like a rugby league player with 14 rugby players.
I was an ambassador for Betway during the Rugby World Cup and at the moment I'm working as an ambassador for Artemis Investment Management. I also organised the first Rugby Aid in 2015. We had celebrities playing rugby against former England team players and raised a ton of money for Rugby For Heroes [a charity for former servicemen and women]. Only one celeb got crunched quite badly - Jaime Laing from Made in Chelsea ended up with cracked ribs.
I played rugby until I was 15, 16 and I eventually had to say, 'No, I have to choose one' and it was obviously going to be football, I miss playing rugby a lot.
In 2011 I stopped playing rugby for England so during the Six Nations, which is on during February and March, I was able to grab a week's skiing. But I still had to take it pretty easy because I didn't want to get injured while I was playing for Gloucester. In 2013, when I retired fully from rugby, I finally had the chance to go a couple of times a season.
When I was younger, I played football and table tennis for local teams. I also played mini-rugby at primary school - I was tall for my age - and Preston Grasshoppers wanted me, but I wasn't that interested in rugby. It was always going to be cricket for me.
Men are boys for such a long time and really don't start getting the great roles until they're in their mid-thirties. But then they've got a long time to do them, whereas for women, it's all about playing younger and younger and younger.
My dad played rugby, so I used to watch a lot of rugby union and rugby league.
My parents are huge influences on me. My mother was an English teacher. My father played professional rugby and coached rugby for the Irish rugby team.
I grew up playing everything from rugby, football, baseball, volleyball, bike races and boxing. I tried martial arts, loved to ride horses and I'm the youngest of three brothers, so it was a fiercely competitive family.
It is very easy to make athletes, and it is very difficult to make rugby players with that rugby instinct. I would like to think I have got a bit of rugby instinct and have become more of a rugby athlete along the way.
I think burnout is a big thing. If I could do it over again, I'd probably do it the same way, playing other sports when I'm younger. I see a lot of parents really push their younger kids really hard, and you want to see your kids do stuff, but there's a point where they really should have fun at that age.