Bryan Habana takes rugby's greatest ever selfie. Credit:Getty Images for Land Rover I spoke on the field, but in the changing room I only spoke when spoken to. There were internationals like Inga Tuigamala, Pat Lam, Dean Ryan who I daren't speak to for three months and then I was so pleased when one of them came over and said, "Are you OK?". I loved that. Brad Thorn: I call it the two-year rule: shut up for two years before you open your mouth. After a couple of years, you might learn to speak. For me, in 2000, I came across to rugby and it was still early days. It has really come on as a fully firing professional game. Bryan Habana: The game has changed a lot since even I started out in 2004, particularly with the physicality of the young players coming in. The game in South Africa has got a lot more professional from a lot earlier age. In South Africa, they are having video sessions at schoolboy level now, which is crazy. Hopefully, the core ethics of rugby will never be lost. I was part of the era where a lot of amateurs were finishing up.

Breaking Australian hearts: Jonny Wilkinson lands that drop goal in 2003. Credit:Simon Alekna As Jonny said, as a youngster, when you went into the dressing room you didn't speak and wanted to make sure you carried the seniors' bags through the airport. Now the game has got so professional so quickly that some of those core values might be disappearing. Has that professionalism and physicality made rugby a better spectacle? Speaking before that final round of Six Nations games, the New Zealand coach Steve Hansen said that rugby was at risk of becoming boring. Brad Thorn and Mils Muliaina parade the trophy in 2011. Credit:Getty Images JW: I definitely think it is better than in past days. I have looked at some of the games I have played in and been like: "What the hell was that?" Awful stuff.

But there was a time when I can remember when everyone would talk about a few guys around the league, saying: "Have you seen so and so, he's absolutely massive?" Nowadays, every team has got five or six of them. Bryan Habana bites his World Cup winner's medal in Paris, 2007. Credit:AP That is going to mean bigger contacts but also, because of the pressure from the professionalism, there is more riding on every game. Relegation is the death of clubs now. There's so much riding on it that you can only do what's right. I played in a team [Toulon] where we would have liked to have done things differently but, when it came down to it, we had to it this way to win. It wasn't everyone's choice but you have to do to it to win. When it comes down to the big games, you walk away as a winner and you will be remembered for ever; you play great and lose, you are not. That's the pressure. Winning feeling: Jonny Wilkinson in 2003. Credit:Getty Images

BT: If you look at the last round of the Six Nations, everyone knew they had to play. They were free to play rugby and you saw three high-scoring games. But, to come back to what Jonny is saying, when you look at the World Cup finals, you don't see attractive rugby. The 2011 World Cup final, I was playing in it and I remember thinking: "This is rubbish." Same thing in 2003 and 2007 because it was so tight. There's so much pressure to win. There's not much risk factor, you just have to take the points when you can. The game is still a good spectacle when there's an opportunity to play some footy. As Jonny was saying, when it comes down to it and you need to win a game, then you play the style to get the job done. BH: When you say, "Is it still a spectacle?", I don't think we have ever heard of a rugby game that is 0-0 after 80 minutes, so, when you compare it to soccer then, a lot more happens. The one thing that has played a big part and where the game is going backwards is that there is so much being played. You have got Top 14, Champions Cup, Super Rugby, sevens and international rugby. Where's your spectator value? Is it in the most attractive rugby? The workload of players with so much rugby being delivered to the world needs to be handled better. The International Rugby Players' Association recently called for mandatory 12-14 week off season - would you be in support of that?

BH: That would be ideal. The biggest problem that rugby has to make that happen is a global season. You are always going to get the issue of the summer and autumn tours and with television rights being sold four to five years down the line, I can't see it happening. BT: Speaking from a rugby league perspective, the model they have where you play Super League in the summer works well. They play some good footy here in the summer when the conditions are better. The other thing I like from league is that we play a lot of footy but it is compacted into six to eight months and then we usually get six to eight weeks off, which would seem crazy to rugby guys, who get four weeks off at the most. Having those eight weeks off means you are excited about training again and then you have a two-month pre-season. That means every year, the product gets better. Young guys get time to rest, recover and refresh. They can do their strength and conditioning along with their skill work, so that every year the package gets better and better. I agree with what Bryan is saying because, when I look at rugby with young guys coming in, they are playing 10 to 11-month seasons, they don't get the right break. JW: The key point there is the pre-season, if you don't get that then you never get to the point where the pressure is off and you can actually properly work on something. It is all mental. Physically, if you are not injured, you can pick it up in a week or two. But mentally, you need to have that break where it is just knowing there's nothing in front of you. That's very different from being told you can have a few days off but then we need you back in. If you had two months you can imagine just dropping that whole weight. You can be someone else for two months. BT: I agree with exactly what you are saying. The mental side of it is massive. If it is too close, you can't drop it. I don't know about you guys, but usually it takes two weeks into the off season where I finally feel that load come off my shoulders. You don't realise that pressure is on you, but then two weeks in you can actually feel yourself chilling out.

JW: But then two weeks later you are back in. So, how do you deal with the pressure involved in a World Cup year, particularly, in England's case, a home World Cup? JW: It is a funny one because we have all been fortunate enough to win World Cups. Now that you have won it, you can look back on it differently than someone who hasn't. Six months out from a World Cup, if you start thinking about how close it is, then you are no longer the same player. It is a horrible balance. The only way to truly protect yourself and control everything is to let it go. Go out there and say, "This is all I have got", because that puts you in a better state of mind for the next game and the next game. Then by the World Cup, you are ready to go. Dealing with pressure is having that constant evidence in front of your eyes of taking on big challenges and it becoming who you are, not what you do. I face challenges. I go out there and this what you get from me - it gets better and better. It is a difficult mindset, but you have to get on with it. While you are playing, it is just about the next game. After the World Cup finals in 2003 and 2007, I was more worried about the next game because I figured I had so much to prove. BT: After the 2011 World Cup, I was on the plane to Japan one week later and 13 days later I was playing in front of an empty stadium and getting beat by an ordinary Japanese team. Within about three weeks, I had almost forgotten about the World Cup. The guys who I had invested time with, like I have with Leicester Tigers right now, I feel a responsibility towards the fans, to my team-mates and the jersey which has been worn before me.

You can laugh off Japan but they brought me there and I like to give more than what I am paid. Within three weeks, I was passionately all for the cause of that. That World Cup was the grand final of grand finals but, like Jonny was saying, you move on to the next thing. You refocus. For professional rugby players, the game is almost like the sun and the weeks revolve around it. After 22 years, I still sit in a changing room getting nervous before a game. Is there a single component that World Cup-winning teams need to have? BH: I look back at 2007, what really worked was, first of all, meticulous planning from our coaching staff. From 2004, they had a plan for where they were heading in three years. Also in 2007, the experience within the team played a vital role - guys like John Smit, Victor Matfield, Os Du Randt. Percy Montgomery was absolutely phenomenal - accurate with the boot and clear-headed decision making throughout that tournament. We had a great team-work ethic, which was utterly vital. Whether you were in the starting XV or a non-playing reserve, the work ethic laid down from our leaders within the team was absolutely non-negotiable. That drive from the senior players really rubbed off on the younger guys. A guy like Frans Steyn was 19 and we had Percy hammering at him day in, day out throughout that World Cup. BT: I would agree with that. Experience and culture are key.

JW: It is a tightness and a cohesion and a togetherness, which is built on respect and experience, but it is ultimately driven by - and feeds on - belief. All of those things that Bryan says give you a reason to believe. You have got guys who have done it before and you hear them talking and it makes you look and think: "Of course we can do this." You look at the young guys coming through with incredible talent and you think: "Of course we can do this." That's the job of every single person, whether that's the guy in charge of the bus schedule, you have got to make it right and make it work for the team. If it is the senior players, making sure they do their job, get the right words in and lead from the front. Whether it is the young players to add that energy at every session and a level of respect. Whatever it is, it does not have to be perfect but you have to have a valid reason for believing why you can do it. You know if you are cheating yourself. You can be in the changing room before a game shouting, "We can do this", and everyone goes, "Yeah, you're right". It's not that. It is knowing why you can do this. I'll tell you why, because he's one of the best players in the world, so's he, so's he, he's been there and done everything, no one ever gets through him, we have beaten these guys already, our coaches love what they do, we know we are the most professional and the fittest team, our facilities are the best - whatever it is, at the end of it you know if those reasons are valid. Can England be that team? JW: Of course they can. Look at those examples I have just given you. Yes, they have got experience, yes, they have got youth coming through, yes, their facilities are wonderful, yes, they have got the coaching talent. It's all there. I spoke to Mike Brown and the way they talk about each other and you realise these guys are more than just team-mates.

When you have a team that is full and so together it means that energy of the crowd can hit it and move it. If you are disjointed and have holes in your team, then that wind of the crowd just blows through you. When the crowd put the energy behind the team, England will feed off it because they are so tight. The Telegraph, London