Dream Team: Nathan Hines – Clermont and former Scotland and Leinster lock

1. Tom Smith – A very good player who was underestimated for being small. Always did a great job in the set-piece.
2. Keith Wood – Exceptionally skilled footballer who could play. I only played against him but he seems like a guy who is good craic like all the Irish lads.
3. Adam Jones – Another guy who is good fun off the pitch and doesn’t take himself too seriously, but when he’s out there he knuckles down to it, a real force for club and country.
4. Martin Johnson – Always tough and a superb athlete more than anything, would run all day and I had some great battles with him. He made sure he left everything out on the pitch.
5. Victor Matfield – His teams could always count on him when it came to leadership, he knew how to get his team to play ball. As a lock there so much you could learn from him.
6. Todd Blackadder – At Edinburgh he always questioned himself to improve while asking the same of you. Not really an intense kind of guy, but he had a presence about him and he was always on top of the game.
7. Richie McCaw – He’s not considered one of the greatest for nothing, he seemed to always be in the mix whenever I played him.
8. Viliami Ofahengaue – I played with Willie O when I started out for Manly and he is the strongest man I have ever met. Most weekends he was ducking calls to play for the Waratahs so he could keep playing for us.
9. George Gregan – He played so many games for club and country and was always creating opportunities for others to run home.
10. Dan Carter – We were together at Perpignan. There was never any complacency in training and on the field it was if he had three minutes to decide what to do with the ball.
11. Jonah Lomu – On debut in 2000 I remember everyone wanting to tackle him before the game, but he always had five guys hanging on to him so I thought it best to leave that alone when I came off the bench!
12. Jamie Roberts – He’s qualified as a doctor, not a terrible-looking guy, he’s played so many times for his country and the Lions. He’s a good fella and is the complete package, so I hate him!
13. Brian O’Driscoll – He’s like Richie McCaw in that he always comes out for the big games when he has to score from nowhere, or he’ll put in massive hits like he did for the Lions in 2009.
14. Sitiveni Sivivatu – At Clermont he is called ‘Siti Speed’, as he’s not very fast in training, he’s economical. But in games he’ll have five defenders chasing him and he’ll slip through their grasp, so elusive.
15. David Campese – Was No.15 for Randwick when I was a young pup at Manly. He could turn you inside out but I managed to tackle him and hang on – but his selection shows my age!