“My job is to persuade people to toe the line and play within the laws of the game.”

I will know some of the personalities, the players who could be difficult customers in a scrum situation.

But then southern hemisphere teams are more skilful than their northern hemisphere counterparts, which means games can be easier to referee.

I have three tools at my disposal – my whistle, my body language and my talk.

The ones I am going to have to really work hard on early in the game to get what I want.

I could give 48 penalties in every match if I wanted to.

You are an international referee for a reason.

The objective of a referee is not to get mentioned. I tell a lot of young referees that not being mentioned is king.

Failure comes when you don’t listen.

The scrum and the tackle are the two really contentious areas of the game.

Coaches do so much research about a referee because they believe refereeing is such a crucial part of the game that the result may hinge on what we say or do.

It is a question of sometimes choosing what is – in your own mind – of material importance and what isn’t, what might be a crucial potential penalty and what might not be.

If things like that are going to ruffle your feathers, don’t bother doing the job.

It’s up to us to make sure we’re listening to improve our chances for success-if not this time, next time.

It is a question of how I marry them up to try to get the players around to my way of thinking.

If at first you don’t succeed, get a bigger hammer.

They probably know more about me than I know myself!

One of our gravest mistakes is persuading ourselves that nobody has passed this way before.

Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.

We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no big ones.

I believe in believing. My coach John Kavanagh is a big atheist, and he is always trying to persuade people to his way of thinking, and I think, ‘What a waste of energy.’

The passions are the only orators which always persuade.

We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.

Many people are being persuaded that they cannot be considered intelligent or well educated if they insist on the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Book.

I don’t think there’s any one definition, but to do effective political work you have to have vision and practicality, and learn how to persuade people that what you feel needs to be done does need to be done.