It was 1995 and Ric Salizzo, the All Blacks’ media officer, was giving us a heads-up on the New Zealand team.

“We’ve got a young kid along. Not sure how much he’ll play, but he’s a good one. Name’s Jonah.”

That was my introduction to Jonah Lomu.

Few knew of him at the start of the Rugby World Cup. By the end of it, he was a superstar, having rampaged his way across South Africa. No player has ever made such an impact, combining pace with terrifying power. The ground seemed to thunder as he tore up the fields with his enormous presence.

Word is that when TV mogul Rupert Murdoch saw the carnage on his television, he turned to his top executive and said: “I want that.”

He got it, too, with News Corp paying $550-million for the rights to southern hemisphere rugby with the original Tri-Nations and Super Rugby tournaments born soon after.

Such was the power of Lomu.

He may have arrived as a little-known, but the moment he destroyed Ireland with two tries in his first World Cup match, it was the sign that someone special had arrived. It wasn’t just that he was so immensely strong, he was a giant who could crack on the pace too.

In his greatest match, the All Black wing tore England to shreds with a four-try demolition job highlighted by his freight train job on Mike Catt. I’ve watched it 100 times and it’s never enough.

“He is a freak,” grumbled captain Will Carling, “and the sooner he goes away the better”.

The build-up to the World Cup final that same year focused almost exclusively on Lomu. More specifically, sages wondered how South Africa would rein in rugby’s new monster. In one of the stranger moments, the question of how to stop Lomu even came up in parliament.

James Small was given the job of marking him, but the truth was that all 15 Boks marked Lomu that day. He could barely move an inch before the marauding Boks got into him. Bringing the big beast down was a rite of passage for them and they lined up to do so.

Joost van der Westhuizen memorably brought him to ground with a front-on tackle that epitomised the bravery that has since come to define him. And Jamie Mulder lined him up and smashed him with a cross-cover tackle that was textbook in nature. Lomu never scored that day, and never once did against the Springboks.

A year or two later I stood next to him in a lift in Auckland. I can’t recall, but I might have gasped out loud at his size. You hang around rugby players long enough and you get used to how uncommonly big they are. But Lomu was massive and seemingly hewn from rock.

There is no question he is the greatest wing to have played the game. Others have scored more tries and

have superior try-scoring ratios, but none had the impact he did.

Whereas the game was largely parochial and insular until the 1990s, Lomu was the one who ensured it exploded into the public consciousness and became a real world game. The sheer velocity and violence he wrought transcended rugby. Even players were in awe, not to speak of media and fans.

Lomu’s latter years were marked by severe illness, which he bore with great dignity. He visited South Africa with a film crew recently and re-connected with old rivals Joel Stranskly, Small and Van der Westhuizen. It was a gentler, smarter Lomu we got to see, but one who still commanded awe and respect.

Rugby has been blessed with many great players. Lomu, terrifying and terrific, was the king of them all.

Rest in peace, big guy.