SPORTING PASSIONS: CHRIS WHITAKERThe Leinster scrumhalf tells Mark Roddenwhy he chose rugby rather than tread the boards

WHEN I was younger, we spent a fair bit of time down the beach and we were outdoors all the time. I've got a brother who's a year older than me and another who's five years younger, so in our spare time we'd just be down the beach surfing and we used to compete in surf life-saving as well.

When we were about six or seven all three of us got into rugby. It was always rugby in winter and surfing in summer.

We'd get down to the beach first thing in the morning as the sun came up and we'd get home after the sun went down.

My younger brother Tom chose the surfing life but he was quite a good rugby player as well.

Surfing is an individual sport and there's a fair bit of pressure on an individual. I preferred playing in team sports so that drove me towards playing rugby.

Surfing is probably like tennis or golf, where you have a main tour and a satellite tour underneath. You have to qualify for the big tour, where the top 44 guys compete every year.

I think there are about 12 contests a year around the world, starting in Australia and going on to Fiji, Tahiti, South Africa and America. Then they go to France, Spain, Hawaii and Brazil - so it's not a bad lifestyle.

It's a man-on-man type of sport so there's pressure to do well. It's also one of those sports where it's up to the judges to decide who wins. It's not like in tennis, where there's a definite winner and the ball is either in or out. It comes down to people's opinions, which is a little bit tricky.

Tom was eighth in the world last year but he's slipped down a little bit. He had an injury they call surfer's ear, where the bones in your ears grow over because of too much saltwater, so they have to drill the bones out. A fair few people go through it, actually.

He was out of the water for a while so he's ranked about 20th at the moment.

Surfing is a fantastic way to chill out. I found that, especially when I was living in Sydney, there's nothing better than having a full day's training and then going down to the beach and having a surf. It's good for your body because you're in the water so it's good recovery and also mentally, it's quite relaxing.

Ireland is a fantastic country for sport, considering the population, because Australia's got a lot more people.

I think the weather plays a big part here. You get so many more opportunities to play outdoors in Australia because of the weather so here you're a little bit limited in what sports you can play.

In saying that, though, you've got rugby, which Ireland is good at, and all the other ball sports like Gaelic football and hurling, which is unbelievable. I don't think I've ever seen anything like hurling, because the skill involved in that is phenomenal.

You've even got the cricket. You wouldn't think Ireland would be able to play cricket because of the weather but they were the surprise package of the one-day World Cup last year.

It's a country that's definitely crazy for sport. You pick up the papers and there's always something to do with sport in there. It's very impressive.

Because we have Aussie Rules, which is similar, we always watched and heard about the Compromise Rules games. But I wasn't too aware of the hurling. I knew there was a game they played with sticks but I didn't actually think it was what it was.

The skill involved to hit that ball from 50 metres out when you're running away from the goal and to hit it through the sticks - it's frightening.

Some of the boys brought some hurleys down to Leinster training and I could never hit it. Every time I hit them, the hurley rattled out of my hands - I just couldn't make contact.

They're so passionate about it as well. I was fascinated by the fact that if you're born somewhere that's who you support, no matter what, and that's who you play for. To me they just brought so much more tribalism and parochial support - it's unbelievable.

In Australia you don't get that. A lot of kids just go for the teams that are doing best at the moment and it's not much to do with where you're born or where you're from.