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Jonah Lomu Tribute Haka Video Will Make Your Spine Tingle

Jonah Lomu Tribute Haka Will Make Your Spine Tingle

Do you get annoyed when a headline says 'this will make you cry' or some other promise which assumes you'll have a certain emotional response to an event?

Well, we hereby declare with enormous confidence that this will make your spine tingle. And if it doesn't, you either don't have a spine or its tingle function is broken.

The video is of a haka performed by former teammates and friends at the funeral of the New Zealand rugby player Jonah Lomu, who died on November 18, aged 40.

Jonah Lomu was the world's most famous rugby player. That's saying plenty considering New Zealand is the world's best rugby nation, which just won an unprecedented third Rugby World Cup.

Lomu was never even part of an All Blacks World Cup winning team. The closest he came was in South Africa in 1995. That's the Cup South Africa won, which inspired the movie Invictus starring Morgan Freeman as Mandela.

Mandela provided the non-rugby images of that World Cup which linger in the memory. But onfield, the 1995 World Cup was all about Lomu. No one had ever seen anything like the brutal winger. Players in his position used to swerve around defenders. Lomu, as you can see in the grainy YouTube video below, simply steamrolled them.

Lomu is thought to have died from complications related to his almost 20-year battle with the debilitating kidney illness nephrotic syndrome. Speaking at his funeral, former All Blacks coach John Hart said Jonah Lomu's long-standing illness meant he played all of his career at only 80 percent capacity. That's just frightening.

The memorial was a beautiful occasion. At the end, doves are released by Lomu's widow Nadene and their two sons. That's the bit that really makes your spine tingle. Lomu, according to those who knew him, was "a humble man who asked little of life." He got the beautiful tribute he deserved today ahead of a private funeral on Tuesday.

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