Remembering All Blacks great Jonah Lomu

All Blacks and world rugby superstar, Jonah Lomu, would have turned 50 on Monday, 12 May 2025.

Thirty years ago, when he turned 20, he was on the cusp of becoming rugby’s greatest star.

He had debuted for the All Blacks a year earlier when playing two Tests against France, a less-than-memorable start to a Test career that, due to a kidney illness, was brief but stratospheric compared to anything that had gone before.

Little did anyone suspect that when he was one of All Blacks coach Laurie Mains’ final selection choices for the 1995 Rugby World Cup, in the recently restored democracy of South Africa, that his actual arrival in the game would occur when rugby jumped the Rubicon of amateurism and became professional.

Who will ever forget

As compelling as Jonah Lomu’s play was at the World Cup, who will ever forget his four tries in the semi-final against England.

While the All Blacks fell in an extra-time final to hosts South Africa, the synchronicity of his emergence and the earth-shattering opening of the game was a perfect storm.

Lomu gave rugby a face in the rugby world that surpassed anything that could have been pre-arranged to launch the game as worthy of a place among sports competing for the public’s attention around the globe.

Who needed a swept-up publicity campaign for the newfound form of rugby to capture the attention of world sports fans?

A ready-made star, whose impact, skill and power emerged at the perfect time, could only have been maximised in the commercial environment that the change to professionalism allowed.

It had potential benefits for Lomu the individual, but had greater value for rugby overall.

For seven years, he was a lightning rod for rugby’s advance into the uncharted waters of a money game that had to be shared, finally, by players who had seen the monetary rewards for their labours go into the bank accounts of those controlling rugby unions, which held those finances in iron fists.

Top of rugby’s world order

Jonah Lomu gave New Zealand, one of the smallest and most vulnerable of rugby’s nations, an advantage in competing for the vital sponsors’ dollars to establish themselves in a position to maintain their station at the top of the rugby world order.

The move to professionalism was expected to disadvantage New Zealand and the All Blacks, who were frequently described as ‘the most professional amateur side’ in the world game. Not for monetary reasons, but for the attitude with which they played the game.

That hasn’t happened, and the more time advances since that day in 1995 when the monetary floodgates opened, the more it is apparent that Lomu was a key factor in ensuring the All Blacks remained among the most competitive of sides. 

Their place in the game didn’t reduce; it improved. And Lomu continued to perform despite coping with the ravages of that kidney illness.

The illness forced Lomu from the game earlier than was wanted.

He played his final Test, his 63rd, having scored 37 tries, in 2002.

He played his last first-class game in 2006, ending a career in which he scored 126 tries, shared in a World Cup Sevens title and won a gold medal in Sevens at the 1998 Commonwealth Games.

But in spite of his death at the age of 40 in 2015, the marvels of modern technology have ensured that his dominant skills are forever available through video memories on any number of platforms on the internet.

Jonah Lomu was a flashing comet across the sporting sky, but in his trail he left indelible memories scattered in his wake, a genuine All Blacks phenomenon.

What’s your favourite Jonah Lomu memory?

Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1

Subscribe to The South African website’s newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.