A tribute to Jonah Lomu: 1975-2015

As luck would have it, the All Blacks chose to unleash Jonah Lomu late one Saturday night 20 years ago against an Ireland team captained by a hooker from Cork.

Neither Terry Kingston nor the men under his command at a half-empty Ellis Park in Johannesburg had the faintest idea that they were about to be hit by such a force of nature that the game would never be the same again. Talk about unsuspecting victims.

The new wing was a monster allright, a Polynesian who had found a fortuitous escape from the mean streets and gang warfare of South Auckland but the blanks he fired in two pre-tournament matches against France hardly suggested that Ireland’s defensive system was about to be blown off its hinges.