Remember Caleb Clarke? Not so long ago he was the find of the season and a breakout All Blacks star as he tore apart the Wallabies in a virtuoso Bledisloe performance on Eden Park.
The power-packed 107kg Auckland and Blues wing made his big move in 2020 when, on the back of an outstanding Super Rugby Aotearoa campaign for the Blues, he was called into Ian Foster’s first All Blacks squad for the pared-back Rugby Championship/Bledisloe campaign and made every post a winner on the back of a game-turning display in his first test start on his home ground.
Clarke started four of his five tests for Foster in 2020, and played in all but the Brisbane defeat to the Wallabies in the six-match campaign. His mix of power and speed on the left wing even drew comparisons to some of the great No 11s of the past, including Jonah Lomu and Va’aiga Tuigamala.
Then came 2021, and a choice that would change the narrative of the Clarke story for the time being.
He played out the Super Rugby Aotearoa campaign with the Blues, and continued to impress, even if he was being used more in a battering-ram type role by a side struggling to assert its superiority up front.
Then, about the time that Aotearoa morphed into Trans-Tasman, and the Blues into a formidable side, Clarke departed the franchise to pitch his lot in with the New Zealand sevens side in its mission for Olympic gold in Tokyo.