Hi, readers for the past few weeks we have been doing an essay about an inspirational New Zealander who changed something. I chose Jonah Lomu as he turned rugby professional In 1995 so here is my work.
Jonah Lomu is the best rugby player ever and I refuse to hear otherwise. His full name is Jonah Tali Lomu and he was born in South Auckland on 12 May 1975 to a family of six. Two brothers and two sisters. He was huge, when he was 12 he looked like he was 18 and was fast too, being able to run the 100 metres in 10.5 seconds. When he was young he played athletics in the summer and rugby league in the winter. He only just started playing rugby union in high school when he went to Wesley College.
He played rugby for Wesley College and was first a lock who then moved to the loose forwards and was unstoppable to bring down. He then represented NZ in the national under 19 side in 1993. Then the under 21s the following year. He impressed so much and was called up for the Hong Kong sevens to represent NZ. Then head coach of the All Blacks Laurie Mains liked what he saw and called Lomu up for his first cap against France making him the youngest ever All Black aged 19 years and 45 days. Despite only having two caps to his name and not impressing, Lomu was called up for the world cup and scored 2 tries in the first game against Ireland. Scored one against Scotland in the quarter-final then unbelievably single-handedly destroyed England in the semis scoring four tries. Scoring the try of the tournament where he caught a bad pass, zoomed past two English players, was ankle tapped but didn’t fall over then ran over Mike Catt.
Also that year he was diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome which was a really bad kidney disease that affected the rest of his playing career and then wider life. After the performances, he put in the world cup NZ rugby knew that they needed to keep him so they created a tournament with SANZAAR called super rugby consisting of NZ teams, Aussie teams and South African teams. For tests, they also created a tri-nations tournament so they could maximise Lomu’s potential. At the 1999 world cup Jonah went rampant again and this time scored 8 tries in the tournament. In 2000 the game of the century was played against Australia and Jonah was a massive hand in the win, when the all blacks went 3 tries up in the space of five minutes but then the Aussies clawed it back to 24 all at halftime. It looked to be over and the Aussies will win but Jonah got the ball and just ran through the defence to score the winner. Jonah played his last ever test for the All Blacks in 2002 aged just 27 because of his ongoing kidney problem. He then attempted a comeback but was never called up for the All Blacks again.
Lomu achieved several feats and broke a lot of records in the process of his career. He was the youngest ever All Black to play his first game and still is. He has gotten the most ever tries in world cup tournaments with 15 tied with Bryan Habana he’s also gotten the most ever tries in 1 tournament (8) tied again with Habana and Julian Savea. He was the first-ever All-Black to score 4 tries against England. He was the youngest ever player to score 10 test match tries and the first to score 12 in a year. In 63 tests for all blacks, he scored 37 tries, in 2001 he helped New Zealand to win the Rugby World Cup Sevens. He was inducted into the international rugby hall of fame and the world rugby hall of fame. He got many sponsorships along the way, including Adidas and Mcdonalds earning millions of dollars through it, including a brief period a burger named after him. He also played for the Blues, Chiefs and the Hurricanes.
He was married three times and with his last wife, Nadene Quirk, he had two kids called Dhyreille and Brayley. In 2003 he won the New Zealand Order of Merit due to being a huge advocate to health charities such as Kidney Kids. On 18 November 2015, not so long after the world cup he died of a heart attack linked to a kidney failure at the age of 40. Tributes were pouring worldwide, such as David Beckham saying how nice of a man Jonah was and was privileged to meet him. Andrew Mehrtens was greatly saddened by the loss of not just his teammate but also his friend. Manly Rugby Club tweeted out about the loss of this rugby phenomenon. The Argentina National team even all wore number 11 jerseys before their game to pay respects. 10,000 people poured onto Eden Park for Jonah’s Memorial and former and current All Blacks performed one final haka in his name.
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