NOBODY was supposed to be capable of stopping Jonah Lomu.
The New Zealand wing was the most frightening rugby player ever to have taken to the pitch. He was quite simply unstoppable.
That was until he came up against the all-conquering 1995 Springboks.
In that famous World Cup final, where a united South Africa stole the heart of the world, the Boks stopped the man mountain and celebrated their victory with our newly elected president, Nelson Mandela.
It was a team effort, of course, but one man more than any other put his body on the line in that game.
Joost van der Westhuizen was the Springbok scrum half, traditionally the smallest player on the park.
He was big for a number nine, but still the sight of him chopping down the 19 stone, 6ft 5in Lomu was like something out of a Marvel comic.
That image will live forever in my mind, along with countless more of Joost’s incredible feats on the rugby pitch.
He is still only 40 years old, but he has been told that he has between two and five years to live due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common form of motor neuron disease.
ALS will be painfully familiar to Scottish sports fans too, it having claimed one of the greatest footballers that ever lived.
Jimmy “Jinky” Johnstone fought the disease for more than four years, taking it all in his stride with the typical wit for which he was renowned.
New York Yankees baseball legend Lou Gehrig also had ALS, known in America as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
Joost is already a sporting legend. Like Jinky and Lou, he will live forever.
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