Rugby world mourns All Blacks legend Jonah Lomu

I don’t think anyone has or will ever change the game of Rugby like he did.

He was photographed arriving home at Auckland airport yesterday.

Lomu won 63 caps for New Zealand, scoring 37 tries in a career cut short by health problems after he was diagnosed with a serious kidney condition.

The 40-year-old suffered from the kidney disorder nephrotic syndrome. He has been on dialysis treatment for more than a decade.

The world lost a rugby legend on Wednesday with the death of former New Zealand All Blacks wingman Jonah Lomu.

“Jonah Lomu was a legend of the game here and the general shock of his passing his affected everybody, not just former players and current players but the general public”.

Lomu was married three times and leaves a wife Nadene and two young sons; Brayley, 6, and Dyreille, 5.

“He was one of those people who were just so good at their craft that they were respected by just about every athlete that did anything”.

“It changed rugby and everybody sat up in sport and entertainment and said ‘who’s this guy?’, ‘what’s this sport?’ and it changed rugby that day”.

In the run-up to the 1995 rugby World Cup in South Africa, unsure if he’d even make the All Blacks squad, Lomu was seriously considering joining the National Football League (NFL).

His tackle-shredding displays included a stunning four-try demolition of England in the quarterfinals, where his trampling of fullback Mike Catt remains an indelible image.

“Rugby sevens first appeared on the Commonwealth Games programme in 1998 and Jonah made his mark as part of New Zealand’s gold medal-winning team”, she said. A larger-than-life person, he was certainly a magnet for a lot of attention.

However, Lomu once turned out for Wrexham RUFC at their Bryn Estyn Lane ground in November 1995, just a few months after bursting on to the worldwide scene at the 1995 World Cup in South Africa.

Lomu and he team-mates were applauded off the pitch by Ireland [Picture: Inpho]Ireland would go on to beat Japan (50-28) and Wales (24-23) before bowing out to France (36-12) at the quarter-final stage at that World Cup. He debuted for the All Blacks at age 19 in 1994 before stunning the world at the 1995 World Cup.