Two wonderful examples of Jonah Lomu’s superb athletic skill and his decency

Prime Minister John Key, who is at the APEC summit in Manila, said he was “absolutely shocked” at the news of Lomu’s passing, and Parliament has expressed its sadness and condolences.

It is not immediately clear if his ill health contributed to his sudden death, but what is clear is the rugby world has suffered a great loss. It’s staggering, a very sad day.

His four-try performance against England during the All Blacks’ semi-final success in 1995 will go down in sporting history as one of the great individual performances.

“When I got to the end Will Greenwood put his hand up and said ‘Clive, we’re all with you but I think I’m speaking on behalf of all the team and I think we’d probably swap Austin Healey for Jonah Lomu'”.

Although he did return in 2005 for several clubs including Cardiff Blues and North Harbour.

“The conjunction of the way rugby was going pro and the way Jonah Lomu exploded on the scene was flawless for the game’s future”.

He had recently been in the United Kingdom to attend the Rugby World Cup and posted photographs of himself in Dubai to his Twitter account earlier this week.

The news comes nearly three weeks after New Zealand became the first nation to clinch back-to-back World Cup titles and five months after the death of another All Black star, Jerry Collins. He also joined the IRB Hall of Fame four years later.

Former Wales fly-half Jonathan Davies tweeted: “Can’t believe that Jonah Lomu has passed away”.

“And when you met him he was the nicest, nicest guy and very softly spoken”.

“He changed the perception of the game”.

“He was such a gentle man, a lovely man, softly spoken, but on the field an absolute superstar”.

Duckworth was a keen admirer of Lomu and had talks with him to come to Worcester, later travelling to New Zealand to discuss the possibility of the winger signing for the club in 2001.

Former all blacks team mate Mark “Sharky” Robinson says, “The image that I have is how he could turn a game [around], he certainly wasn’t the best man to have against you and I had the pleasure of playing with him”.

R.I.P Jonah Lomu – it was a pleasure to host you and your family at our theatre in September – a true gentleman and ambassador – In our thoughts.at this sad time… “Rugby’s first global superstar… a friend we will miss always #RIPJonah #legend #alwaysablue”.