The day Jonah Lomu turned out for a small Welsh club and how they are paying him back
A Welsh rugby club is set to repay a kind gesture from late All Blacks great Jonah Lomu.
Lomu was revered in Wales’ Port Talbot region after he held a free training session at Aberavon Naval club in 2008 and played in a charity match that raised thousands of pounds.
The club has since folded but now some of the former players are hoping to return the favour to assist the trust formed after Lomu’s 2015 death.
“A couple of us decided to see if we could do something as a means of saying thanks for what Jonah did for us all those years ago,” former Aberavon Naval Stuart Broad told Wales Online.
“So we’re having a Jonah Lomu legacy match at Aberavon Harlequins rugby ground.
“Some of the boys who used to play for us when Jonah came to the club are coming out of retirement to play. I’m sure there will be a good turnout.
“There are some great people in Aberavon and all over Wales who I’m certain will want to pay tribute to a great man and help those he left behind.”
The match to raise funds for the Jonah Lomu Legacy Trust will be held on November 16.
Broad also revealed how the idea to invite Lomu to Aberavon Naval came about.
“One guy suggested we contact Jonah Lomu’s agent to see if Jonah would come down to the club,” Broad said.
After hearing about late All Black Jerry Collins’ appearance for English club Barnstaple they thought it was worth a try.
“It was a bit of a long shot, but we had nothing to lose and make contact we did,” Broad continued.
“To our surprise, the agent got back to say Jonah would be up for it…”
Lomu held a training session at Aberavon Naval – attended by 1000 people, including club players, school children and Welsh test prop Adam Jones.
“He could not have been more humble,” Broad told Wales Online.
“We’d all read that he was a gentle giant and he fitted that description perfectly.
“He fitted in with all the lads and was just so comfortable.
“You wouldn’t have believed you were sitting next to a world rugby icon, the game’s first global superstar, perhaps.”
Lomu played in the charity game for Aberavon Naval against a Port Talbot XV in November 2008, in front of a large crowd.
Broad remembers the former All Blacks wing terrorising the opposition. “One guy went flying backwards. They had to bring smelling salts onto the field to revive him,” he said.
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Dagg is still trying to get enough headlines to make himself relevant enough to get a job. The Crusaders went back to square one at all levels. Shelve this season and nail the next one.
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3 Go to commentsBoth nations missed a great opportunity to book a game that would have had a lot of interest from around the world. I understand these games can’t be organised in 5 minutes but they should have found a way to make it happen. I don’t think Wales are ducking anyone but it’s a bad look haha.
3 Go to commentsIt will be fascinating to see the effect that Jo Yapp has. If they can compete with Canada and give BFs a run for their money that will be progress
1 Go to commentsFollowing his dream and putting in the work. Go well young fella!
3 Go to commentsPerhaps filling Twickenham is one of Mitchell’s KPIs. I doubt whether both September matches will be at Twickenham on consecutive weekends. I would take the BF one to a large provincial stadium so as not to give them the advantage and experience of playing at Twickenham before a large crowd prior to the RWC.
3 Go to commentsvery unfortunate for Kitshoff, but big opportunity potentially for Nché to prove he is genuinely the best loosehead in the world, rather than just a specialist finisher. Presuming that if Kitshoff is out, it will also give Steenekamp a chance to come into the 23? Or are others likely to be ahead of him?
1 Go to commentsA long held question in popular culture asks if art imitates life or does the latter influence the former? Over this 6 nations I can ask the same question of the media influencing the thoughts of its audience or vice versa. Nobody wants to see cricket scores in rugby, as a spectacle it is not sustainable. With so many articles about England’s procession and lack of competition it feeds the epicaricacy of many looking for an opportunity to pounce. England are not the first team to dominate nor does it happen only in rugby, think Federer, Nadal, Red Bull or Mercedes, Manchester Utd, Australia in tests and World Cups. Instead of celebrating the achievements why find reasons to falsify it pointing towards larger playing pool, professional for a longer period or mitigate with the lack of growth in other nations. Can we not enjoy it while it is here and know that it won’t last for ever, others coveting what England have will soon take the crown, ask the aforementioned?
6 Go to commentsShame he won’t turn out for the Netherlands now they’re improving. U20s are Euro champs and in the U20 Trophy this year. The senior sides gets better every year too.
3 Go to commentsWill rugbypass tv be showing these games?
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36 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
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3 Go to comments