There’s no doubt that Jonah Lomu will always be remembered as the man that changed Rugby. A prolific tryscorer and a giant amongst men, at his fittest the All Black scored tries with ease. Today we look at the chaos he caused in one Bledisloe Cup game.
With this year’s Super Rugby heading into the knockout stages, the next big thing on the international rugby calendar will be the Rugby Championship, and the trans-Tasman rivalry of the Bledisloe Cup. New Zealand have dominated for years, and it was the same back in 1995.
For those of you who weren’t lucky enough to watch his career closely, another huge part of the legend’s game was his ability to offload in the tackle and set up tries for those around him.
When we see offload these days one tends to think of the likes of Sonny Bill Williams and fancy passing, but with Lomu it wasn’t that at all. It was his ability to beat multiple players, and just as the third or fourth came in to attempt to take him down, he’d get the pass away.
Sly flankers like Josh Kronfeld often benefitted from the ground Lomu made, and so even when the wing was brought down short of the tryline, it often resulted in a try for the All Blacks anyway.
This short video takes a look at this element of his game in just one match, against rivals the Wallabies in 1995, just a few months after he helped New Zealand reach the final at the Rugby World Cup in South Africa. Here he scores one try and sets up three more, as one does.
New Zealand won the game 34-23 to set up a run of seven straight wins over the Wallabies.
We’ll feature more from the great man and others in the lead up to the 2014 Rugby Championship.
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