LAST OF HIS KIND

JONAH LOMU would have been 50 this year. Ten years since his untimely passing, we ask those who knew him about our sport's global phenomenon

- words JOSH GRAHAM // main picture DANNI COLLIER

ELVIS, PRINCE, Madonna, Beyoncé, Pele and Jonah.

All superstars where only one name is required. That's how big the late, great Jonah Lomu became worldwide.

“I was in New York with some mates and we were sitting in a bar,” recalls Will Carling, England captain at the 1995 World Cup.

“This American bloke came up to me and said, ‘Talk to me about tackling Jonah.’ I said, ‘It’s a short conversation.’ And he just laughed and walked off. You don’t think people are going to talk to you about rugby in America.” But that was the impact Lomu had. He took the game to new frontiers after exploding onto the scene at the World Cup in South Africa 30 years ago.

It was in the semifinal at Newlands against England where Lomu announced himself as an All Blacks icon. He scored four tries against a dumbfounded opposition. It’s probably the → most destructive individual performance of all time.

“We'd seen him on TV and stuff and thought wrongly that we would treat him as a normal player,” Carling recalls. “But I'm standing in the tunnel in Cape Town and there was a delay and obviously I looked round. My head went down this line and about fifth down there was this massive block of a player, and it was just like, ‘Oh my God.’ You're trying not to react, but he was like nothing you'd come across before.

“I'd like to think as a captain I'd prepared myself in the week, I'd run through all the scenarios in my head. But I never considered that the game would be over within 20 minutes and we would be standing under our posts four tries down or whatever.