New Zealand great Jonah Lomu changed the face of rugby union forever

The All Blacks legend, who had been in the United Kingdom to attend the Rugby World Cup on promotional duties, was 40 years old.

It is considered one of the most iconic images of rugby union: the freeze frame of Lomu trampling over Mike Catt to score the first of his four tries in the 1995 world cup semi-final.

World Rugby president Bernard Lapasset and former England manager Clive Woodward both said that Lomu had changed the face of the sport. “It was (former All Blacks coach) Laurie Mains who made a decision to play him on the wing”, former teammate Zinzan Brooke said. “We’re lost for words and our heartfelt sympathies go out to Jonah’s family”.

He leaves behind wife Nadene and two sons, not to mention a catalogue of golden memories the sporting world will cherish forever.

Lomu won 63 caps for the All Blacks and took the rugby world by storm after making a huge impression at the 1995 World Cup in South Africa.

He played for several domestic teams, including the Auckland Blues, Chiefs and Hurricanes, and Counties Manukau, Wellington and later North Harbour and Cardiff Blues. When you think of ’95 you think of Nelson Mandela wearing the number six shirt and Jonah scoring four tries that destroyed us within 25 minutes. He single handedly changed the game of rugby.

“He is an icon of the game”.

“I had a lot of calls and I put them off and I was seeing it was a few close friends that I hadn’t heard off for a while so I knew something must be up”, he told the New Zealand Herald.

Jonah Lomu, who bulldozed opponents with his size and blistering speed, only to be felled by a kidney illness that extinguished his meteoric All Blacks career, died suddenly yesterday.

“I am hoping not to come across him again”, said England captain Will Carling at the time.

Jonah Lomu was an absolutely incredible player who was arguably the first man to become a global superstar in the professional era of rugby.

“Until the day of his passing he was at the World Cup still promoting the game, talking about his memories and the moments he created in everybody’s memory, they are there for everybody to see and are marked in history. Love and thoughts go out to Jonah’s family”.

“It really is very sad what has happened to him at such a young age”.