"Everyone in France will want to be in the stadium for the opener!"

BACK IN 2007, it was amazing to have a first Rugby World Cup in France. You had family and friends around but you also felt the atmosphere. Go into a restaurant or meet someone at the boulangerie, you could see the excitement.

As players then, we tried to protect ourselves from those events, to prepare for the games. Because World Cups are huge for players, and you can conjure up images of Jonah Lomu, Dan Carter, Jonny Wilkinson or Christophe Dominici in 1999. It can be crazy but you want to create good memories like that.

We started badly in 2007 against Argentina, because of the pressure I think. After that, we beat the All Blacks in the quarter-finals and I still remember it. There was crazy support behind us.

Being on the organisation committee for 2023, I can see now that there was another way of doing it! We fought for this beautiful event in our country, and I can see people working hard to welcome 600,000 people who will come to visit our World Cup.