Michael Jones
CAPS 56
Anyone lucky enough to see Michael Niko Jones play in his prime most likely won’t forget it. He was a player of freakish ability and no matter what level he was playing at, Jones was someone who left his audience with their jaw close to the floor.
There hadn’t been a player quite like him when he came along in the mid 1980s. He was rangy, yet muscular with it. He wasn’t strikingly tall, nor noticeably short – he was just remarkably well put together with the look of an athlete.
And that’s really what he was – a remarkable athlete with the ability to run like a back, yet be battered like a forward.
That’s what set Jones apart. There he would be one minute doing everything that was expected of an openside flanker, and the next he’d be tearing o , running and passing as if he was a fullback.
The mix was intriguing. It was entirely new to modern rugby and Jones was a player who won instant recognition and admiration on the world stage for being so true to the core roles of a seven, yet also being able to add so much more to the role.
Where Jones went deeper in his influence was that his physicality was clean, almost pure. He earned a reputation for being incredibly tough but always calm, always fair and always within the rules.
He was a warrior and his relentless desire to respond with big, legal tackles and heavy ball-carries marked him out as di erent to his peers in a time when cheap shots and violence were commonplace.
It was Jones, really, who alerted New Zealanders, the world, to the playing potential of those with Samoan heritage. Not only did Jones have natural athletic abilities, he had this enviable ability to be generous, open, loving o the field and yet so focused and destructive on it.
It has become known as the Samoan paradox – powerful, explosive men who will die for their mates on the field and yet do anything for anyone o it.
That was Jones and it has become the way for so many other Samoan Kiwis such as Keven Mealamu and Jerome Kaino. They share similar traits with Jones.
“You go to war for your country, you can’t take a backwards step,” Jones said in 2011. “In the late 1980s, early 1990s, there weren’t the cameras or the touch judges, so there were a lot of things happening that people got away with.
“It was about intimidation and physical domination. I knew that if someone went for me, I had them straight away, so I just had to focus on my game.
“I found a way to send a message to them that I didn’t need to throw a punch back, but I could smash you hard in the tackle, aim for your ribs in the ruck or rub your face in the ground. They’d get the message that way. I’d never take a backwards step, but all legally and in the rules of the game.”
Jones’s integrity was partly driven by his devout faith. He was a committed Christian who refused to play on Sundays.
It was a big call to take that stand as it e ectively ruled him out of the 1995 World Cup as he would have been unavailable for too much rugby for the All Blacks to take him.
But that was Jones. The church was a big part of his life. He believed that God had given him his gifts, his natural talents, and homage had to be paid.
His commitment to his faith tested his resolve at times when he had to miss big games but it deepened respect for him. Made him seem like even more of a warrior.
When he finally retired in 1998, former All Blacks coach John Hart was in no doubt as to who he believed was the greatest All Black of the modern era “To me, clearly, Michael Jones. Without peer, a man who played all three loose forward positions, and with the skills to play in the midfield. A freak on the field, and a gentleman o it.”