"Waking up the morning after beating the All Blacks will always feel like a scalp"

There was a full seven years between my 100th cap for Ireland and the November morning in 2017 when I sat down in Christchurch with Kieran Read and Sam Whitelock for a first chat as a new Crusader coach.

I am figuring this out in real time. There’s no manual for these things. Even if there was, every day and every situation is different and gets treated on its merits.

It hasn’t been a Lions tour to excite or stimulate. No realistic analysis can set aside the artificial environment in which the games are taking place

Warren Gatland has selected a British and Irish Lions team — certainly in respect of the backs — to finish stronger than it starts

"I'm more connected to this group than I have been at any stage since coming home from New Zealand. That’s important to state because there were times over the past 24 months when I really thought I might have backed the wrong horse"

Usually when you lose a European Cup final, there’s no outlet to vent your frustration on or right the wrongs. The Top 14 semi-final has rekindled everyone’s appetite and determination at La Rochelle

You wake up convincing yourself to be the first and only person to have lost a cup final and truly know the ache involved. Once the thaw sets in, you get a grip and remember you’ve been around this dark place a few times before

We’d fallen in love with La Rochelle. You either make it exclusively career-based — which means you are essentially dragging your family, sometimes against their will, with you — or you treat it as an epic family adventure

Whether it’s the lockdown or the club keeping a lid on the pre-final hype, or a combination of both, but it’s been very much business as usual around La Rochelle this week