“You can’t put something out there and assume it’s great.”

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!

I came to The United States to see what would happen in 2000 after working for 20 years in Australia and asked my agent to look out for the nasty roles because I’d become famous for playing the nicest man in Australia.

You tend to work out what makes them tick, what they respond to.

Crushing the life out of all the other human possibilities.

As I understand it, a universe is a … well, a totality. A universe is everything that is, as far as the inside of the thing.

The future is not laid out on a track. It is something that we can decide.

Now it’s just sharp elbows, and instead of having a caucus where you sit down and say, ‘What are you doing for your country?’ you sit figuring out how to screw the other side.

All you hear about on the news is all the bad stuff everyday, but what was refreshing to me was after that, you saw how many good people there are out there.

The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution hasn’t started yet.