Jonah Lomu was lost for words yesterday on hearing he had been recalled to the New Zealand side to face England. The All Black star said that his return to Test action after serious kidney trouble threatened to end his career meant more to him than winning his first cap.

"It's more memorable than actually getting my name called out for the first time for the All Blacks," he confessed. "Words cannot describe it. There are not enough words in the dictionary to spell out how I feel."

Despite scoring twice for the midweek side against Emerging England in Huddersfield on Tuesday night, Lomu said he still hadn't expected to be picked.

And when the team was announced, Lomu said he was stunned.

"I didn't think I'd done enough in the midweek game and when my name was read out I was gobsmacked," he said. "If I had had a pacemaker it would have gone off the Richter Scale."

Lomu, 22, has not played a Test for New Zealand since August 1996 and he admitted he did fear that his career could be over after he was diagnosed as suffering from a kidney disease.