Doug Laing
Napier's McLean Park could again kick off the All Black career of Jonah Lomu after being confirmed as the venue for next year's trial.
The match will be played on June 3 on the same ground where Lomu played the All Black trial which propelled him into the All Blacks
for the first time in 1994, at the age of 19.
Having established a huge reputation while still at school, as a New Zealand Under 17 lock and national Secondary Schools No.8, he rocketed to international attention as a sevens player earlier in 1994. But at the time of the game in Napier two months before that trial, he had a first class 15s career of just two games for Counties and another All Black trial, in Wanganui.
He scored a try in the trial, and was selected immediately to play for coach Laurie Mains on the wing in the two home tests the All Blacks lost against France.
Dropped for the next four tests, he became the star of the World Cup in South Africa the following year.
In Italy this week, Lomu, who had a kidney transplant this year, said he had recently returned to fulltime training, and hoped to be playing again next year with the ultimate goal of playing in the 2007 World Cup.
The Napier trial will be played on the night before the British and Irish Lions play the first match of their New Zealand tour, against Bay of Plenty, and will be followed by the naming of the squad for the All Blacks' first test, against Fiji at North Harbour Stadium on June 10.
The allocation of the trial to Napier came after an application by the Hawke's Bay Rugby Union to the NZRFU and was not unexpected.
McLean Park, where the All Blacks played their first home night test match, against Manu Samoa in 1996, had missed out on a game in next year's Lions tour.
