Jonah, be a good lad, get the bags will ya?

By CRAIG TIRIANA in Rotorua
The New Zealand sevens team have the most famous waterboy in the rugby world.

All Blacks legend Jonah Lomu dished out refreshments during a taxing two-hour session coach Gordon Tietjens threw at his World Cup-bound squad in Rotorua yesterday.

Lomu is recovering from a kidney transplant and looking to play his return rugby match, Martin Johnson's testimonial game, on June 4 in England.

He has been out of the game for three years and was set to take a more active role in training but an ankle injury restricted him to handing out water and encouragement and lugging tackle bags around.

"I'd love to be there [training] doing it full-time but it's all good," Lomu told The Daily Post.

"It's good coming out to support the boys. We trained yesterday, it's more about supporting them."

Lomu was a member of Tietjens' team that won a Commonwealth Games gold medal in 1999 and the Sevens World Cup in Argentina in 2000.

"It's a great culture - very unique culture sevens, very different to anything else. It's a family you can leave and every time come back to," he said.

Tietjens said having Lomu involved in the camp was great for his young side, all of whom looked up to him.

Lomu burst on to the world scene in Tietjens' sevens side in 1994.

Fresh out of school, he captured the rugby world's imagination with his speed and size - traits he took into the 15-a-side version, becoming the youngest All Black.

His appearance at the public training yesterday caused quite a scramble at Rotorua International Stadium with television crews and photographers training their lenses on him throughout the session and children queuing for autographs.

At one point Lomu ducked down among the seating to get out of the cameras' range, much to the delight of a laughing sevens squad sitting around him.

Lomu moved with a noticeable limp but his general fitness appeared fine as he dragged up to four tackle bags at a time and threw them around like pillows, in between passing the ball with his former national sevens team-mate Peter Woods.

Lomu was a surprise visitor at Western Heights High School on Wednesday morning when the team attended assembly. He was introduced by sevens legend Eric Rush as the security guard for Tietjens' young side.