How Jonah Lomu’s most famous victim responds to the abuse he still gets 30 years on from 1995 incident
Mike Catt, inset, has been talking about Jonah Lomu going on the famous first try run against England at Rugby World Cup 1995
Mike Catt has revealed the cutting riposte he has for fans who still abuse him 30 years after he was run over by Jonah Lomu in a Rugby World Cup semi-final.
The South African was picked at full-back in the 1995 match-up in Cape Town, but the selection became the stuff of nightmares as the then 20-year-old Lomu scored four tries and frequently made England look like a collection of small boys trying – and failing – to tackle a giant.
The final scoreline read 45-29 in New Zealand’s favour, but that was only because England grabbed some second-half consolation scores to give the result a flattering look.
Truth was the English had been blown away in a farcical semi-final which included All Blacks No.8 Zinzan Brooke slotting over a long-range drop goal.
“That sits nicely with me…”
Trouble materialised less than four minutes in when Catt was steamrolled by the rampaging Lomu, and the unstoppable winger went on to score three more tries after dotting down for that jaw-dropping first score.
Catt, though, ultimately had the last laugh. Whereas Lomu’s All Blacks went on to lose the 1995 final to the Springboks, Catt’s England went on to win the World Cup eight years later in Australia – something he makes sure he mentions whenever he gets abused by fans reminding him of his horror semi-final experience in Cape Town.
Appearing on Coaching Culture with Ben Herring, the current Waratahs skills coach recounted his memories of the World Cup in South Africa and explained how he settles the score with people who slag him off about his infamous Lomu ordeal.
“The funny thing is, everybody forgets that eight years later I was lifting a World Cup trophy and Jonah never lifted one. Poor bugger,” said Catt. “If anyone deserved to lift a World Cup trophy, it was Jonah Lomu.
“Whenever I get abuse like that, I go well, ‘Fortunately, at least I won the World Cup in 2003’, so that sits nicely with me.”
Catt added that he now looks back on the 1995 incident as hilarious rather than with any regret that he was only an ineffective speed bump for Lomu, the rugby star who sadly passed away in 2015. “The way I looked at it was everybody knew who I was by the end of that World Cup, all for the wrong flipping reasons, but everyone knew who I was because of Jonah Lomu.
“That clip gets shown every four years. Even now, I get kids coming up, ‘Oh, I saw you on YouTube, you got run over by Jonah Lomu’. That game was incredible. Jonah pretty much changed rugby union that World Cup.
“People forget Jonah was part of one of the most incredible rugby teams. That New Zealand team, Zinzan Brooke did a 45-metre drop goal and he is the back row. Everything just went their way.”
Catt then referenced an England meeting in the run-up to the semi-final and how what was said soon became rubbish. “I still remember the team meeting on Friday night, Jack Rowell, our coach at the time, asking the Underwood brothers, because they were in the wings marking Jonah, what are you going to do to stop Jonah? ‘Oh, we are going to get in close, we’re not going to give him any space’.
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“Eighteen hours later, the ball goes over the top, Tony Underwood is nowhere to be seen. Lomu gets the ball in 40 metres of space. If you look at the clip, Will Carling ankle taps Jonah, so Jonah then starts stumbling as an 18 stone player with an unbelievably big gait, you can’t get your arms wrapped around it and he is stumbling towards me.
“The tries he scored after, he just ran around me, but unfortunately, this time he was stumbling and he ran over me. Next thing I am lying on my arse and looking back and Jonah is scoring the first try of four he scored that day.
“I turned back around and there was Robin Brooke over the top of me going, ‘Mate, there is a lot more of that to come’. It was just an incredible experience to be part of a game like that and I laughed at it from day one; it was hilarious. It is hilarious.”
