When Lomu, ABs were ‘fanatical’
The All Blacks face England in a Rugby World Cup playoff match for the first time in 24 years tonight. Stuff sports writer Mark Geenty walks down memory lane with some key figures from that unforgettable Cape Town semifinal in 1995.
For sheer ferocity, flanker Josh Kronfeld never experienced anything like it with the All Blacks, before or since. And that was before they’d even trotted onto Newlands, inside the dressing room’s concrete walls as they braced for England in the Rugby World Cup semifinal of June 18, 1995.
‘‘Zinny [Zinzan Brooke] was doing his thing, revving the guys up and he was literally frothing at the mouth. I remember standing in that forward pack huddle before going out and thinking ‘these guys are just next level for intensity’,’’ Kronfeld told Stuff.
‘‘We were never a team to hit each other or headbutt walls like some of the old school stories, but for pure adrenaline and craziness and intensity and focus, it was probably the most fired up I ever saw an All Black side.’’
A giant wearing the black No 11 jersey paced about, silent with a steely gaze, headphones on, music blaring. Coach Laurie Mains had shown Jonah Lomu, a month past his 20th birthday, a clipping in which his opposite Tony Underwood suggested Lomu couldn’t match him for pace and hadn’t really been tested yet.
‘‘He just went very quiet and mumbled something along the lines of: ‘he [Underwood] is going to know who Jonah is when this game is over’,’’ Mains recalled this week.
‘‘He was very focused. I don’t think I saw him more focused before any other match.’’
The result was spectacular, on a sunny Cape Town afternoon. One of the great All Blacks performances was headlined by a near superhuman Lomu who became a global superstar in 80 minutes.
He cantered in four tries and famously used Mike Catt, nearly 40kg lighter, as a speed bump for the most memorable of them. England captain Will Carling described Lomu as ‘‘a freak of nature’’.
Brooke could well have worn a Harlem Globetrotters singlet under his black jersey, firing a huge infield pass for one of Lomu’s tries and dropping a goal from nearly 50m to help build a 25-3 halftime lead. England finished strongly but the damage was done, the final score 45-29.
Aside from it being a cup semifinal, there was a reason for the All Blacks’ prematch fervour which Kronfeld described as: ‘‘A little bit obsessive . . . almost fanatical.’’
Some players saw it as payback for 18 months earlier, the 1993 Twickenham test when England won 15-9.
Centre Frank Bunce was one of seven starting All Blacks returning from that test for some revenge after their hosts were, in New Zealand eyes, ungracious winners.
‘‘I do remember that [1993 post-match]. There were comments, a bit of banter giving us a bit of stick, on the field and off it.’’
So when the All Blacks flew into their work at Newlands they returned the verbals. Walter Little gave Catt an early shove. And when England’s gun goalkicker Rob Andrew took aim, a chorus greeted him.
‘‘We were standing in front of him when he was lining up kicks telling him how hopeless he was, that he was going to miss. And he did. Then the one he did get, he let us know about it,’’ Bunce said.
Even Lomu was chirping, as he later recalled. ‘‘I showed him [Underwood] the outside and scragged him and threw him out and I said, ‘is that all you’ve got?’’’
In an interview in early 2015, the year he died at age 40, Lomu said his teammates removed the TV from his room in the leadup and left him brooding over Underwood’s comments. Mains said Lomu trained as well as he ever did that week in Cape Town.
Said Bunce: ‘‘With Jonah you never really knew, but we were giving him heaps about Tony Underwood. We used to needle him about that sort of stuff . . . we didn’t know to what extent it would build up but it worked.
‘‘He’d played well in the leadup games but then just took it to another level and it was kind of a shock to everyone, us and them.’’
Underwood was bold. He doubled down on his pre-match wind-up by winking at Lomu during the haka, then for the next 80 minutes was left grasping at thin air or tossed about like a rag doll.
In 2009 the England wing recalled: ‘‘The first try was the worst. Lomu left me on the ground, then trampled over both Will Carling and Mike Catt, and the onslaught started.
‘‘You’ve got to look back in awe at the way he took us apart. It was just a great time for rugby. I can’t imagine there would ever have been a better time to be in our sport.’’
Later there was profit after pain for Underwood and his brother, Rory, who marked Jeff Wilson on the other wing. They appeared in a brilliant Pizza Hut advertisement as tiny figures pleading with a giant Lomu to share his pizza, before the Underwoods’ mother fells him with a copybook bootlace tackle.
For Mains the match wasn’t about revenge, but the execution of a long-range plan with England and their giant forward pack in their sights. He and sidekick Earle Kirton rated England their toughest rivals and plotted for months.
Having flogged his charges over the summer to ensure their superior fitness, Mains and his men signalled a new era in test rugby. They’d hinted at it against Ireland, Wales and Scotland, who they beat 48-30 in the quarterfinal. Match their rivals up front, play at high speed and create space for Lomu, Wilson and Glen Osborne out wide.
‘‘England were a big side, who could throttle a team and close you right down, slow down all your second phase ball.
‘‘A large part of our preparation was being fast enough and physical enough to
‘‘Lomu just went very quiet and mumbled: ‘he [Underwood] is going to know who Jonah is when this game is over’.’’ Laurie Mains
stop them doing that.’’
Bunce felt it was the perfect storm for the All Blacks between eras of captain Sean Fitzpatrick and an experienced, battle-hardened pack, with Lomu, Wilson, Kronfeld and Andrew Mehrtens just beginning their own glittering careers.
Job done, and onto Johannesburg for the final.
There was one more delicious moment for the All Blacks when they boarded the plane the next day and realised England were on the same flight. What’s more, organisers decided the winners would fly business class and the losers economy, bound for a third-place playoff in Pretoria.
Bunce remembers it well, nestled in his business class seat as England giants Martin Johnson, Martin Bayfield and Tim Rodber shuffled past to shoehorn themselves in, further back in the plane.
‘‘There was a little bit of needling going on then, too. Just a sly wink, a smile and drink your glass of champagne just as they were walking past.’’
But there was one more week, and no fairytale ending for the men in black who lost the decider to the Springboks in extra time.
Whatever the reasons for the All Blacks falling at the final hurdle, Kronfeld wondered if they left it all on Newlands the previous week.
‘‘In some ways we may have played the final before we even got there,’’ he said.
‘‘For complete focus and out and out intensity, it was probably the most complete game I was ever involved in. Everyone played their role and there was individual brilliance.
‘‘As much as Jonah scored some spectacular tries, there was some amazing work that led up to him getting the ball.
‘‘It was special, just for the ferocity that came out when the whistle went. I don’t think I ever experienced that. It was quite spectacular.’’