JONAH WAS A FORCE OF NATURE, A COLOSSUS
THE DAY ALL BLACK LEGEND LOMU DESTROYED ENGLAND IN A WORLD CUP SEMI-FINAL
More than 24 years have passed since england last played New Zealand in a World Cup semifinal, but those on the pitch at Newlands on June 18 1995 still have vivid memories of one man: Jonah Lomu.
It was the game in which a 20-yearold from the rough suburbs of Auckland changed an entire sport. Lomu exploded on to the scene with four tries, destroying every englishman who got in his way with a masterclass of pace and power. Sportsmail tracked down his team- mates Zinzan Brooke and Frank Bunce — and england victim Dewi Morris — to relive the historic occasion.
ZINZAN BROOKE: Before the World Cup we had a probables versus possibles trial match and our coach Laurie Mains gave the loose forwards strict instructions to test this guy out. Not physically beat him up, but try to intimidate him and see how he responded. The coaches wanted to work him out. eight minutes into this match, I lined him up off the back of a lineout. I was in the perfect body position to tackle him but — ‘bang!’ — he swatted me like a fly. He was a special young man. one on one, you would back him 10 times out of 10.
FRANK BUNCE: In the days leading up to that match we wound Jonah up. He was marking Tony Underwood, who was in the press a bit leading up to it, so we needled Jonah with the press clippings to wind him right up! Underwood was saying that Jonah, because he was only 20, had never really been tested and was putting pressure on him. Underwood was 5ft 9in and about 12st. We spent the whole week winding up Jonah about it, good naturedly, and by the end he had steam coming out of his ears.
DEWI MORRIS: We had done all our homework. We were going to try to keep the ball tight. If Jonah got the ball, take him around his legs. What we realised is that if you went for his legs then he would just smash you to the ground with his piston arms. It didn’t matter if you went low, medium or high that day. Modern rugby players are big and strong, they know how to deal with it. These were amateur days and, back in 1995, he was a force of nature.
FB: We had lost to england at Twickenham in 1993, the last time we had faced them, so there was a lot more riding on it. We had a lot of guys at their best. There were a lot who went on to become greats of New Zealand rugby — Sean
Fitzpatrick, Jeff Wilson, Ian Jones, Josh Kronfeld, Andrew Mehrtens. Laurie took us to a new level of fitness, too. everything was working for us. It wasn’t just ‘get the ball to Jonah’, there was a whole lot more around it, but it was a great fall-back option! Beautiful. He was going great guns. People underestimated his pace. They thought, “He’s a big guy who will run over us,” but once he got away you were hard-pressed to catch him. His first try that day has become ‘the Mike Catt try’. Jonah was stumbling and just went straight over the top of Catt. He had beautiful balance, pace and power. There was not a lot of reviewing in those days — it was just out on the field, bang, this is what we’ve got.
DM: I don’t remember touching the ball for the first five minutes because they were awesome. I had a couple of goes at Jonah. As a scrum-half, you’re trying to sweep along the back line. His stepping and his stride length were so amazing. There were great guys in that team — Zinzan, Sean — but Jonah was someone we couldn’t even get close to. We just couldn’t get hold of him. He was 6ft 5in, 19 stone and did the 100metres in 10.7seconds. We had a couple of gameplans to miss one out, miss two out and give the ball to Tony Underwood. But Jonah would stop, turn and catch him in two strides. I remember seeing him catch Tony with his fingertips in his collar and just fling him into touch. Lomu could have run over anyone that day. Any turnover ball they just flung it to Jonah and that was it.
ZB: He inflicted a lot of pain on english hearts. His legacy is about reaching out to other people. He made people watch rugby who didn’t.
FB: The game was one of the best I ever played in. Graeme Bachop chased Dewi around and intercepted him once and flicked the ball on to Jonah all in the same movement. That was another of Jonah’s tries. Zinzan had all the skills. only Zinzan could have hit that drop-goal from way out. Jeff Wilson and Andrew Mehrtens came on the scene and were highly skilled. It was beautiful timing that they all came together.
DM: Sean Fitzpatrick said to me afterwards: ‘We’re in awe of him as well.’ Some of the American Football teams had come in for him but Laurie Mains has said he would be shot if he hadn’t brought him back to New Zealand. It wasn’t nice to be on the receiving end of a drubbing but it was nice to be part of history. New Zealand lost the final to the hosts, South Africa, 15-12 in extra-time. Lomu played in the 1999 World Cup but the All Blacks lost to France in the semi-final. He retired from international rugby in 2002 with 63 caps. He died in 2015 aged 40 after a heart attack linked to kidney disease diagnosed in 1995.