Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Andrew Mehrtens: ‘We didn’t know he was going to explode that much’

Jonah Lomu of New Zealand looks for support as he is tackled by Eric Elwood of Ireland during a Rugby World Cup pool stage match at Ellis Park, Johannesburg, South Africa, 27th May 1995. New Zealand won 43-19 and went on to the final, where they were defeated by South Africa. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Of all the players to have ever played Test rugby, Jonah Lomu would be top of pretty much everyone’s list of players you’d rather play with than against. In that sense, Andrew Mehrtens got lucky because he was always a teammate and never an opponent.

ADVERTISEMENT

Mehrtens’s international career spanned a similar timeframe to that of Lomu, and 51 of his 70 Test appearances came alongside the behemoth wing, with both making their Rugby World Cup debut against Ireland in 1995, a match which can now be watched on the new RugbyPass app. Footage of Lomu’s two tries in that match, a thumping 43-19 win, can also be seen on the documentary, Lomu: The Lost Tapes, which is being launched on the app this Saturday.

While their careers dovetailed nicely as team-mates, Mehrtens was glad he never experienced what it felt like to be on the receiving end of one of Lomu’s collisions.

Video Spacer

Jonah Lomu sets up Josh Kronfeld vs Ireland – 1995 RWC | RPTV

Video Player is loading.
Current Time 0:00
Duration 1:16
Loaded: 0.00%
Stream Type LIVE
Remaining Time 1:16
 
1x
    • Chapters
    • descriptions off, selected
    • captions off, selected
    • en (Main), selected
    Video Spacer

    Jonah Lomu sets up Josh Kronfeld vs Ireland – 1995 RWC | RPTV

    Jonah Lomu’s incredible run that set up arguably the try of the tournament at the 1995 Rugby World Cup. You can watch a full replay of the match on the new RugbyPass app.

    Download now

    “I’d briefly played with him, thank god, at the end of ’94. John Kirwan, I think it was, was retiring and going to Rugby League and they had an invitation game, like a Barbarians game, it might have been against a David Campese XV or something like that. I managed to get a run as a young face and Jonah was in that team and I remember looking at the guy and thinking, thank goodness, he’s on my side,” said the France-based fly-half, who recently became part of the ownership group at French Pro D2 club Beziers.

    “Then, I was also pretty lucky. We won the Ranfurly Shield, with Canterbury in ’94, and we played Counties, Jonah’s province, and he didn’t actually play and I managed to get the bounce of the ball and get a try on the wing, around his replacement. Again, I remember thinking, ‘Jeez, I’m glad Jonah wasn’t playing today.”

    It was before New Zealand departed for Rugby World Cup 1995 in South Africa where Mehrtens first properly saw Lomu’s power. He recalled: “In 95, he was frightening. I remember some All Blacks training sessions during the year and we’d do the four corners, in a grid, and you’d all be lined up in the four corners and you’d have to take one or two steps into the square, smash the hit pad, hit and spin and go and pass it to the next corner. I remember Jonah taking one step off his corner and smashing into Richard Loe, a pretty tough customer, a big heavy guy, and he genuinely sent him flying into the middle of the squad, and that was off one step. He was phenomenal. I think I had the ball in my hands in another corner and I was shocked at what I was seeing. I thought it might be a one-off. Everyone had their eyes on Jonah and when Sean Fitzpatrick stepped up next, he got the same treatment. Off one step, bam, into the middle of the square.”

    Mehrtens roomed with Lomu and found that they had a similar outlook, if not a very different physique.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    “I first roomed with him just before we left for the World Cup, so we were in Auckland and one of his uncles, I don’t know if it was a blood uncle or not, brought in this enormous bowl of Tongan chop suey and we had this thing stinking in the corner of the hotel room for a few days while we trained and we’d dip into it now and then. I thought this is pretty cool.”

    Related

    As Sean Fitzpatrick says in the hour-long documentary about Lomu’s life, the eyes of the rugby world were on the All Blacks as they set off for South Africa as favourites to win the tournament for the second time. But it wasn’t until Lomu set foot on the Ellis Park pitch for the All Blacks’ opening match against Ireland that their secret weapon wasn’t a secret anymore.

    Lomu’s two-try performance in that match and through to the final were something else, and a massive step up from what he had shown in the two caps he’d won against France in 1994.

    “Whether it was a game plan or whatever that suited him, and things clicked around him to give him opportunities; whether the experience of firstly being on the field on the wing in the big boys level rather than No 8 at schoolboy level and he just got more comfortable with it; whether he’d looked down the barrel after being built up so much and not being selected and cast aside (for the initial World Cup squad); whatever it was, he just hit that ’95 World Cup running, as we all saw,” Mehrtens noted.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    “At the start of the World Cup, we didn’t know he was going to explode that much. We knew he was going to be phenomenal, but you also think, ‘Okay, at international level you have more physical guys and better tacklers and that sort of thing, so we didn’t really know if he could have the same effect. And after the experience of ’94, we weren’t really sure if on the wing he’d still find himself a little lost.

    “The aim was to give him the ball in space so that he could get some momentum up. But you don’t just want to chuck it out willy-nilly and have the entire cover defence get across. We didn’t have to be too intricate with things but we just did a couple of things to create an opportunity to get the ball to him, simply and in space, and let him do his thing.

    “I don’t think we could ever imagine the effect he would have, in terms of standing up guys and going around them. As soon as he lined you up, even some of the bravest tacklers would footplant and stand on the spot preparing for this collision. And then he would just step off his right foot and go around them on the outside. He was bloody quick.

    “I think it was Josh Kronfeld who profited the most because I think he scored two or three times more (career) tries than he would have otherwise done, just because he tracked straight across and got on the inside of Jonah.

    “Jonah scored a couple of times against Ireland and he also beat three defenders, took on three defenders near the line, and got the ball away to Josh for a try.

    “I remember thinking I should get up there and get a couple of ‘plums’ (tries) myself but I never managed to be able to do it.”

    Related

    Previously unseen footage of Lomu at his rampaging best at that tournament, including four tries in the semi-final destruction of England, is mixed in with more personal, off-the-field moments throughout the documentary. And Lomu’s secret battle with nephrotic syndrome (kidney damage) features prominently.

    “We had no inkling he was struggling behind the scenes with that nephrotic syndrome,” said Mehrtens.

    “I was astounded, right through to the end (Lomu passed away nearly 10 years ago), I don’t we realised the severity of it. I suspect Jonah wanted it to be kept quiet.

    “As a group, we were always taking the mickey out of one another, and he got his fair share which I think he quite enjoyed. We used to joke about Jonah being the last one to finish the 3km time trials. We had no idea he was carrying extra weight and fluid because of his treatment, which meant he wasn’t able to be anywhere near 100%, physically.

    “I remember one time trial where the fast guys finished in probably 10-11 minutes and even the bigger boys were doing pretty well, they’d finish in 13-14 minutes. But Jonah came in that one time in 17 minutes. We’d been sitting beside the track watching him complete the last two laps and Olo Brown, Craig Dowd and a few of the other big boys went out to run those final two laps with him, even though they’d just done an event that they were not designed for.

    “It took him that long to do 3,000 metres but if you ever put the ball in his hands and told him to run through people 30 times over a 100 metres he’d do it on his ear.”

    To smash records – Lomu is still the joint top Rugby World Cup try-scorer, along with Bryan Habana on 15 – and smash defenders in the way that he did, and the condition he was in, only adds to Lomu’s legend.

    Mehrtens doesn’t believe we’ll see his like again. “No, I don’t think so. You look at the players these days and, of course, they are far bigger and stronger and more athletic than we were. But I think for a guy like that, he was so far ahead of anything else. So different. He wasn’t perfect, obviously, but he was just so much ahead of anyone else physically, I don’t think we’ll see that gap again.”

    The new RugbyPass App is the home of rugby. Offering fans a one-stop solution to enjoy the game they love, how they want it. Download today from the App Store (Apple) or Google Play (Android).

    Related

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Boks Office | Episode 35 | Six Nations Round 2 Review

    O2 Inside Line: This Rose | Episode 3 | France Week

    Second round of the Men's Six Nations | Whistle Watch

    Harlequins vs Bristol Bears | PWR 2024/25 | Full Match Replay

    Yokohama Canon Eagles vs Saitama Wildknights | Japan Rugby League One 2024/25 | Full Match Replay

    Watch now: Lomu - The Lost Tapes

    The Dupont Ploy: How France went from underdogs to Olympic gods | The Report

    Former rugby player is truly an NFL superstar | Walk the Talk | Jordan Mailata

    Trending on RugbyPass

    Comments

    5 Comments
    B
    Bull Shark 19 days ago

    I recently watched a video of Jonah visiting Joost at his home in SA.


    What a human being he was. What a great person. He will never be forgotten.

    B
    Bull Shark 19 days ago

    So it may have been days old chop suey in the corner of a room (and not Suzie)!?

    G
    GP 19 days ago

    Really interesting comments about Jonah by Andrew Mehrtens. As another person said they are both legends. Really sad that Jonah Lomu is no longer with us. I remember the 1997 NPC final here in CHCH. Jonah and Joeli Videri were on the wings for Counties-Manakau. Merhts was at first-five for Canterbury. There was a lot of trepidation in the build up about those two on the wing. Andrew played a key role in getting the win for Canterbury. But a big effort was maintained by Canterbury to contain those two. Sadly Joeli has passed as well. . A year later he tore us to bits in a NPC match in the second half. What a great player Andrew Mehrtens was for Canterbury , Crusaders and the All Blacks. A great guy off the field too.

    R
    Ray 19 days ago

    Didn't think we would ever be able to replace Andrew in Red and Black. However was at DCs debut against the Brumbies. Wasn't much I could say after he scored a couple of tries and a raft of conversations

    R
    Ray 19 days ago

    Both Merts and Jonah bloody legends

    Join free and tell us what you really think!

    Sign up for free
    ADVERTISEMENT

    Latest Features

    Comments on RugbyPass

    TRENDING
    TRENDING Hamstring problem rules Lion out of Ireland’s game with Wales Hamstring problem rules Lion out of Ireland’s game with Wales
    Search