Rumours had been circulating in those days before every sporting event was immediately beamed around the world that something special had happened at that year’s Hong Kong Sevens and that the All Blacks were set to unleash it as a new weapon at the forthcoming World Cup.

Relatively little was thought of that initially, not least because the records showed that the youngster in question had already become an All Black and been ineffective as what was, even then, a huge shock occurred when they were beaten in successive Tests in Christchurch and Auckland to lose a home series 2-0 to France.

Then, on a chilly South African mid-winter night at Johannesburg’s Ellis Park, those of us fortunate to be there watched Jonah Lomu, in tandem with fellow new arrival Josh Kronfeld wreak havoc upon the Irish. He scored two tries that night but it was their style, rather than their quantity, that made the indelible impression.

At 6’5” tall and 19 and a half stones, he was taller and heavier than most locks at that last amateur rugby tournament, yet he looked quick and powerful enough to be a 200m or 400m Olympian.

Such was the clamour to speak to this thing of wonder that the All Blacks press officer of the day, one Rick Salizzo, shrewdly realised that, shy and uncomplicated as he was, the 20-year-old might be thrown off course by the scale of the attention.

A large section of the world’s rugby press was consequently invited not to a press conference with Lomu, but to a video screening of an interview Salizzo had conducted with him. It was not exactly satisfactory, but it meant that ‘interviews’ could duly be filed.

Such was this tournament’s importance to its hosts, newly reintegrated into world sport and desperate to reintroduce themselves in style, that questions would be raised in the South African parliament in the ensuing weeks as to how to stop Jonah Lomu.

On a less theatrical level I visited the Irish camp the night before Ireland’s quarter-final meeting with France, snuck into the back of their press conference and waited until discussion of how they would deal with France the next day concluded before before venturing to ask Simon Geoghegan whether, in the wake of what had happened to them, they had given any further thought to how they might deal with Jonah Lomu if they met him again.

Recognising the accent and immediately deducing the reason for the question, the winger who had been Lomu’s opposite number as he announced himself, responded by saying they had done and reckoned the only chance a defender might have would be to let him run just past him then bring him down from behind.

Scotland’s quarter-final against New Zealand was not until a day later so I raced back to their headquarters to report this to Craig Joiner, in the hope of gaining a usable reaction from Scotland’s right winger.

Still a youngster in his own right Joiner was sufficiently mature and self-aware to give little away, saying he could not go into detail but that the matter had been given some thought.

The memory of the All Blacks’ first try that day, as Joiner, a former schools international sprinter appeared to let Lomu pass him, then chased him all the way to the line because the big man’s pace was such that he could not catch up.

Jonah would score a second try that day and we were back home in to see the new sport of Catt-trampling get underway a week later, with his four try demolition of an England team that had been, in hindsight, ridiculously sure of itself.

The records do not quite show the impact his performances had in that tournament and he was actually to set his World Cup record of eight in a single tournament at the next one four years later, but then he only played five matches in registering his seven tries, one of which was the final when the food-poisoned All Blacks were collectively prevented from crossing the line of their committed hosts.

What perhaps sums it up better, then, was the comment of the demoralised England captain Will Carling, another who, like Mike Catt, had been ground into the Newlands turf and infamously said after that semi-final: “He is a freak… and the sooner he goes away the better.”

In demeanour, tone and phraseology, Carling often got things horribly wrong but the criticism to which England’s captain was subjected for those comments was perhaps slightly unfair since there was, in the context of rugby at that time, something truly freakish about what had been unleashed on the sport.

However the first signs that Lomu might ‘go away’ rather earlier than he should emerged the following year when it was revealed that he had serious health issues, yet in spite of that he continued to be the most feared and revered figure in the sport during the next seven years.

Six more of his 37 Test tries would be scored against Scotland and such was his stature that reputations could be made by those who simply showed the courage to stand up to him in defeat.

In particular, Cammy Murray’s place in Scottish rugby’s annals is largely owed to the way the gutsy little Borderer repeatedly put his personal welfare on the line in confronting a man who out-weighed him by more than five stones, before shimmying around him for a consolation try in the 1999 World Cup quarter-final.

Murray was celebrated all round Scotland on the back of that performance, although he paid something of a price in ensuing meetings and, as well as his Test tries against Scotland, there is also a memory of a Murrayfield appearance for the Barbarians during which Lomu became so bored with scoring tries that he waited beyond the line at one stage before delivering a pass to a team-mate.

Even as the light died it still flickered more brightly than anything previously seen in the sport as Jonah Lomu blazed a trail that has since been followed by many other physically imposing wingers.