Denied longevity, but a lasting legacy

THE All Blacks are a big deal in Europe. Jonah Lomu was bigger.

That was perfectly illustrated in November 2009 when the All Blacks were in the football-crazy city of Milan.

They were well received at the San Siro Stadium, but when Lomu came out to wave to the crowd, there was pandemonium. No one would have minded had he just stayed and waved and the game never happened.

He hadn’t played a Test for seven years and, yet, there he was, the most famous player on the planet. That might have perplexed Kiwis in the crowd.

The All Blacks are like time, they wait for no man, and there’s always a new hero, a new superstar, to capture the imagination.

Inundated with magical players, New Zealanders perhaps failed to grasp the significance of Lomu and his legacy.

The English, Scots, Irish and Welsh encountered Lomu at the 1995 World Cup and felt his full force. All four nations felt like they went to bed one night, woke up the next morning and rugby was an entirely different game.

That was Jonah – he changed the landscape and his impact hit on two distinct fronts.

Rugby had been edging towards professionalism between 1991 and 1995. Increasing amounts of cash were being stuffed in shoe boxes and sham jobs were being created, but officialdom – mired in a forgotten world of clubs where ties have to be worn and hats left at the door – clung on to this idea that the tide could be held back.

The players were desperate to break the shackles. They needed something or someone to create

If he’d been concocted in a lab by the finest scientific brains, they wouldn’t have been able to match nature’s genius

irresistible momentum to drag the sport to the future it craved.

That someone was Lomu. This shy, almost reticent young man from South Auckland, with the Tongan warrior spirit running through him.

He was the irresistible force – 120kg of perfectly honed flesh that had the power of a 747.

There were plenty of athletes his size – none had ever been selected on the wing. If he’d been concocted in a lab by the finest scientific brains, they wouldn’t have been able to match nature’s genius.

As the 1995 World Cup developed, Lomu was frequently referred to as a “freak” – it was never meant as anything but the highest compliment. Great players such as Gavin Hastings had never seen anything like it.

Lomu had been enough of a spectacle to persuade media tycoons there was a global audience for rugby.

Rupert Murdoch stumped up close to $1 billion to own the southern hemisphere game. A new generation of players were suddenly basking in what for them was unimaginable wealth. Lomu’s legacy was visible, if not necessarily appreciated, at this year’s World Cup.

The big names were on billboards everywhere. TV screens had rugby players endorsing this and that, and the origins of this brave new world can be traced back to the events of 1995 and the miraculous work of the man who wore the All Blacks’ No 11 jersey.

On the field, too, there were strong traces of Lomu – none more obvious than within the All Blacks, where Julian Savea’s performance against France in the quarter-finals evoked such strong comparisons.

Giant wings are commonplace now – enormous men at the widest, most vulnerable parts of the field using a combination of pace, power and sheer size to wreak havoc – but would anyone dispute that the original remains the best?

Lomu was denied, as a player, father and husband, the longevity he deserved. But while his career was all too short, it made the most phenomenal impact. – New Zealand Herald

– New Zealand

Herald