Quote

There's ego in all of us rugby players.

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

Your name or what you've done on the rugby pitch is not going to carry you through for the rest of your life. I realise I'm going to have to eventually do something else, and that does frighten me a little bit.

Nobody cares about your autograph. There are cameras everywhere, and there are media outlets for them to 'file their story'.

My real heroes have always been sportswriters.

When you are suddenly standing in front of a bunch of journalists being asked what it's like being a British Olympic legend, it's a bit much to take in.

I think of sports writers as mediating between two worlds. Athletes probably think of sports writers as not macho enough. And people in high culture probably think of sports writers as jocks or something. They are in an interestingly complex position in which they have to mediate the world of body and the world of words.

I'm very proud of 'Gavin and Stacey,' but I think I have to write something else even to start to consider myself a writer. Just because you do something once, it doesn't mean that's who you are. I played football last night; it doesn't mean I'm a footballer.

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

Nobody ever calls me a soccer-playing writer, even though I play soccer and it's part of who I am.