Never mind who won - look at Lomu

By HUGH GODWIN

It was the toff against the tough, and the tough won.

True, the result went England's way, but the All Black fans at Twickenham rose as one to acclaim Jonah Lomu, while English jaws simply dropped.

James Simpson-Daniel has benefited from some of life's little advantages, such as a public-school education at the alma mater of Will Carling, and an arrival on the world stage at a time the richest union on the planet is spending big in order to be the best.

But Lomu, the Tongan kid who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Auckland, has been there, done that. And continues, thrillingly, to do so.

With or without the hyphen and double barrel, Simpson-Daniel, of Sedbergh School, and latterly Gloucester in the premiership, is destined to be a big name. Lomu, all four letters and near 120kg of him, already straddles the world.

The giant wing was made to look foolish once by his much smaller all-English opponent in the non-cap match against the Barbarians last May.

But this was not the Barbarians. And this was more like the real Lomu.

England wisely avoided playing any mind games with Lomu. That job was left to All Black coach John Mitchell, who described his No 11 as the only off-form player in what had been from the outset an eccentric touring party.

Lomu was unwilling to live down to the advance billing. In the 15th minute of his seventh test against England, he did what he does best, pummelling into the left corner for a record seventh try in matches between these teams.

Simpson-Daniel had been drawn in by a slick handling move, and the defensive combination of Mike Tindall and Jason Robinson was nowhere near enough.

It was no fault of Simpson-Daniel if he was not yet at home. What the 20-year-old debutant badly needed was a little burst to stretch the tension-tightened muscles, perhaps a kick in behind Lomu to chase ... damn it, a single touch of the ball would have been nice.

All were denied him for the entire first 40 minutes. Not since that Italian gentleman with the lavish moustache was helped over an Olympic finishing line, and so lost a marathon gold medal, has so much running been done to so little effect.

Only in first-half stoppage time did Simpson-Daniel get started. A couple of handling links helped towards Lewis Moody's try.

"James has got a lot of natural skill, but his No 1 asset is his temperament," Nigel Melville, the Gloucester director of rugby, said recently. That temperament was to be fully tested in the second half.

Simpson-Daniel had to be extremely patient before his first chance to run with the ball.

Having seen the then 17-year-old sparkle among his peers when he captained Sedbergh to the open title at the annual Rosslyn Park tournament in the spring of 2000, I was prepared to wait, too, for his confirmation on the highest altar.



Lucky Jim barely raised an eyebrow when he was called up by Gloucester for a Heineken Cup semifinal last year. Not a hair on his blond head was out of place when, as a late replacement for the suspended Phil Greening, he ran in three tries to help England to win the Hong Kong Sevens final last March.

There was a grin but little more when another treble destroyed Gloucester's good friends, Bath, by 68 points a month later.

And a shrug of indifference when his sleight-of-hand against the Baa-Baas left Lomu lagging.

So finally, in the 46th minute, we got another glimpse of the future. Simpson-Daniel had just hauled Lomu to the ground, to great acclaim, and now he bamboozled a couple of All Blacks when he might otherwise have passed the ball.

It was a confident, diagonal break, but ruined by a slip as he turned inside. Even so, the move continued for Jonny Wilkinson to score, and when Ben Cohen went over soon after, all looked fine and dandy.

But this second of four rugby-playing brothers was soon rudely reminded what it will take to succeed at this level.

Unwisely, he slowed his rate of attack as he put himself in the path of a Lomu charge, and was swatted backwards with utter contempt by a hefty palm in the chest.

Simpson-Daniel executed an undignified forward roll towards his own goal-line, and the All Blacks, with Lomu barging to a second try, all but overturned England's hard-earned victory.

Lomu may not be at the absolute peak of his powers, but he has survived eight years in the toughest rugby environment in the world, not to mention a debilitating kidney disease.

Simpson-Daniel, meanwhile, has hurdled the more prosaic distractions to one of his age - girls, or books, or money, or some other hormonal distraction which might have kicked in to rival the adrenalin of ripping apart defences.

So far, adrenalin is winning. But it was Lomu who thrilled at Twickenham yesterday.

- INDEPENDENT