Paul Lewis: Lomu legend deserves to live on

It's been interesting watching the naysayers during Jonah Lomu's comeback. A few weeks back in the Times, Matthew Pryor, writing under a headline that read 'Forlorn Lomu looks stumbling shadow of his former self', said that to say Lomu is a shadow of his former self was to miss the point (which doesn't say much for his headline writer, then).

Pryor went on to say that Lomu looked close to collapse, that he did not seem a well man, that he would be lucky to play much more professional rugby, let alone regain an All Black jersey, and that "it must be hoped that the end of Lomu's career does not become a freak show".

In the Daily Telegraph, former England hooker Brian Moore ('Time sadly not on Lomu's side') took a slightly kinder view, saying Lomu should concede his fight against age, loss of pace and loss of reactions and allow people to remember him in his pomp and glory. Another guardian of Lomu's health, Chris Rattue of the NZ Herald, seized on Pryor's piece to question again Lomu's comeback, saying it can only have been a mix of "vanity and insanity" that led Lomu back to the rugby field.

And last week, in the Independent on Sunday, Hugh Godwin's critique of Lomu's performance in Cardiff's loss to Perpignan: "...the lunging step with knee held high bore the menace of a hoodie being mugged by a grandmother. The last quarter was almost embarrassing. Lomu received a horror of a grasscutter pass, did an undignified version of the splits and presented possession to Perpignan..."

Much of the criticism of the big chap is couched in what purports to be concern for Lomu. It smacks of self-righteousness and the arrogance of presuming to know better.

It reminds me of those who call for the banning of boxing. All right, not all of us might agree with the principle of boxing. Putting aside the fact that, at the top end, it is a genuinely scientific and skilled sport, there is no doubt that lives have ended and/or been cruelly affected by it. Muhammad Ali, suffering from Parkinson's disease supposedly accelerated from a career prolonged too far, stands as a constant reminder of the perils of the sport.

But he is also arguably the most recognised and admired sportsperson in the world.

Did anyone force Ali to be a boxer? Did anyone insist that he make his comebacks? Would Ali have been Ali and led the life he's led if not for boxing? Should we ban rugby because Derren Witcombe hurt his neck? Should we ban football because George Best couldn't handle fame and drank himself to death? I know, let's ban cars. Dangerous things. People die in them. It is still legal to sell cigarettes.

The point is that people have the ability to make choices for themselves. There are dangers in many things we do - but that doesn't stop us electing to do them. It's the same with Lomu. The naysayers have missed the point. OK, he isn't going to get in the All Blacks. OK, he's not the player he was. But this isn't just about playing rugby - he's completing a section of his life which has been denied him by illness. Unfinished business.

Having said that, rugby defines Jonah Lomu as perhaps nothing else does. It's what he knows how to do. It gives him pleasure. He doesn't want to let it go yet.

A friend of mine, a fit man almost in his 50s, was chatting to a rather haughty woman at some social do. She regarded him with exaggerated horror when he said he still ran at an athletics club and played football. "But why on earth would you do that?" she said - and didn't understand his answer: "Because I still can."

The naysayers who criticise Lomu are revealing only, like that woman, that they have never been touched in their lives as Lomu has been touched by the game of rugby. They have never neared the tip of an Everest, as he has. They do not have the blood of champions in their veins, nor do they understand the compulsion to get that blood churning again.

He was the greatest player on the planet. It is hard to move away from that, even if he will never again be that player. He wants to try because he now can.

Lomu doesn't seem like a budding coach. Or a referee. When he lets go of the game, it will probably be forever. Which makes this phase of his rugby career doubly important to him.

It will be giving him enormous pleasure. Any pain - physical or mental - at missing out on his stated goal of making the All Blacks will also be his. But, as some have pointed out, just playing first-class rugby again is a victory.

So let's drop all the fake concern for his wellbeing and let him get on with it, shall we?

Any champion making a comeback will inevitably be under the microscope for performance reasons. But those covering Lomu's playing return should do so in the knowledge that the dream is his; the task is his; and, if it all turns to custard, the custard is his.

Never mind the All Blacks. If Lomu can finally give up rugby knowing that he made a contribution in this phase of his career, the triumph is also his.

So let's let him get on with it and respect his struggle, rather than penning glib epitaphs for a man who is not yet dead.