All Blacks legend Ma’a Nonu has revealed that he was so afraid to confess his parking mistake to Jonah Lomu that he kept it a secret for nine months.
“When I made the Hurricanes, he [Lomu] looked after me a lot. I used to drive my dad’s van to Hurricanes training, and one particular day he asked me, ‘How did you get here?’
I said, ‘In my dad’s van’ and he said, ‘How’s your dad getting to work?’
Lomu was having none of that and lent Nonu one of his cars.
But on the first day he had use of it, Nonu managed to scratch it.
“I couldn’t park it on the road, so when I tried to turn the car around
“I used to drive to training early and park in the bush. This was back in 2003. It took me nine months to build up the courage…I rung him and I was like, ‘Big guy, I’ve got to tell you something. I crashed your car’,” Nonu told BBC Sport’s Scrum V podcast.
“He was like, ‘Don’t worry about it’. It was a massive weight off my shoulders. I just wish I had told him earlier,” Nonu said.
“I had so much love for Jonah. He was one of the reasons I wanted to pursue rugby.”
