Jonah Lomu 1975 - 2015

[Tutonic]

One of my, and many others sporting heroes passed away last night at the ridiculously young age of 40.

I will never forget seeing him play live, an awesome force of nature, and speaking as someone who has also gone through a transplant I know what it took out of him.

[BrotherTobious]

Agreed such a sportsman and one of the biggest players to bring rugby to the limelight. He was fantastic player, just so excited to watch, poor Mike Cat and Will Carling.

Never got to see him play live but was glued when he played on TV.

Rest in peace, my thought go out to his family and friends.

Sent from my Nexus 5

[TeaLeaf]

I will never forget seeing him play live, an awesome force of nature

That kind of sums it up for me too.   His impact on the game was immediate.  His impact on the players concussive.  I will never forget his performance against England in that semi-finals, in particular the first try when he went through Underwood, Carling and then quite simply destroyed Mike Catt by running right over him.  

6'5" and 260lbs.   He would have made a ton in the NFL.  He even runs like an NFL running back, but with elite tight-end size.  The best TE in the NFL the past couple of years has been Rob Gronkowski - he's 6'6" and 265 lbs.   Lomu would have been as good if he'd ever wanted to play in the NFL.

Remember all the fuss during the World Cup about Sam Burgess?   Burgess is 6'5" and 250lbs.    But Lomu was bigger, stronger, quicker, far more agile and had better hands with a burst of speed that could make most backs look stupid. And he played at the start of his career in an era when players still wore rugby shirts to play the game because they looked bad in lycra tops.

This video kind of sums up his impact in a game where at the time, the athletes were not as well-trained as they are now.  But even now, he would stand out.  He was just bigger and better than everyone else.

To quote the Vulcan to the Sky Trust when the Vulcan made its final flights earlier this year:

"Don’t cry because it’s stopped, smile because it happened.”

RIP Jonah.

[Sn00ks]

I remember meeting him and some other All Blacks on an Air New Zealand flight into Auckland. It was after they won the World Cup and the team were on the same plane going home. Most of them came down into bucket class to meet the passengers and I remember that most had to walk sideways to fit down the aisles. Also they forgot to get any vegetarian meals so we ended up with some of their lobster dishes, which was nice. Made the other passengers a bit envious.