Jonah Lomu, A Giant Among Men: The Story of a Rugby Hero

By Niall Edworthy

A concise biography of Jonah Lomu, the international icon who changed rugby

Jonah Lomu, A Giant Among Men profiles New Zealand’s greatest sportsman, and one of the finest players in the history of rugby. His combination of pace and power was unprecedented, enthralling fans from around the world.

Lomu burst onto the international scene in 1994, joining the All Blacks as their youngest-ever member. With a string of exceptional performances he came to dominate the Rugby World Cup the following year. His ebullient personality, frightening athleticism and passionate pride in wearing the shirt captured the public imagination, and made Lomu the game’s first truly global superstar.

His tragic death in November 2015, aged just 40, left the rugby community in shock. This biography pays tribute to a life cut short, but one marked by such achievement and impact that it will never be forgotten.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781910859254

Book preview

Jonah Lomu, A Giant Among Men: The Story of a Rugby Hero

Niall Edworthy

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When it was announced on 18 November 2015 that Jonah Lomu had died suddenly, it triggered a wave of mourning not just in rugby and New Zealand, but across the world and across sport – even in countries where barely anyone plays rugby and among people with no direct connection to Lomu or interest in the game in which he excelled. The tributes flowed in from a remarkable range of public figures and ordinary citizens. For a man who barely completed a full season on the pitch owing to debilitating illness, he was the object of an extraordinary outpouring of grief.

There is no argument that Lomu was an outstanding rugby player, but there was clearly more to the response than grief that a once great sportsman was no longer with us. It wasn’t as if he had been taken away at the peak of his playing days – he hadn’t done anything remarkable on a rugby field for almost 15 years. It was really only in the few weeks of two World Cups, that he truly and consistently raised himself above the rest – head, shoulders and waist above, as it happens. In the bite-size tributes that burst from social media like a confetti bomb following his death, most found room in the limited space available to acknowledge Lomu’s character as well as his sporting prowess. It wasn’t so much Lomu the sportsman they were going to miss, it was Lomu the man, Lomu the shy, humble, vulnerable, generous giant who never thought he was better than the next man – except perhaps when he was barrelling towards him with an oval ball tucked under his arm.

Had you run into Jonah Lomu when he was a young tearaway on the streets of South Auckland and told him that one day he would be honoured by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, be stopped for an autograph on the streets of Kuala Lumpur and have a live televised memorial in his honour at Eden Park, he would have laughed in your face. But he would have laughed very gently in all likelihood… unless you happened to have made him angry somehow. He was certainly stewing back then.

Lomu’s turbulent childhood cast a long shadow over his short, remarkable life. Few men have undergone such highs and lows in an existence cruelly abbreviated to 40 years by the ravages of a degenerative kidney condition. Throughout it all, the experience he endured as a youngster stalked him at every step. They are called the ‘formative years’ for good reason – and the more extreme the experience, the more extreme the response in the emerging character. Jonah Lomu, lugging physical and emotional burdens from an early age, both suffered and revelled in a life of wild extremes.

By the time he was 15 years old, Lomu was no longer living at home. The beatings and abuse that he, his brother and mother suffered at the hands of his heavy-drinking father had become intolerable. One day, the quiet young boy picked up his father Semisi, threw him across the room, packed up what few belongings he owned and walked out through the front door, never to return. It was over twenty years before he spoke to his father again – and only then under duress. The family rupture was all the more painful for the shy teenager because he loved his mother Hepi, and two brothers and two sisters. But to get away from his father he had to leave them too.

It is difficult to measure the effect of such anguish. All we can be reasonably certain of is that Jonah Lomu was a very angry young man and when he took to a playing field, it showed. There was an urgency rocket-fuelling his will to succeed. He was born with all the physical attributes of an outstanding athlete but, without the fire within, the gifts might have counted for little. He had a furious determination to prove himself, to smash opponents, to leave them groping in his slipstream, to bellow the haka until his eyes almost popped, to train – shackled by serious ill-health – until his lungs screamed and his legs buckled. When the final whistle had blown on his career, and his body wanted him dead, the same furious determination drove him to squeeze the last pip of joy from his life. One of his vital organs may have finally given up on him, condemning him to spend half his days flat on his back hooked up to a machine, but he never gave up.

It is reasonable to wonder whether Lomu would ever have become the