Olympics shock: ABs winger on outer
All Blacks winger Caleb Clarke will be heading to Tokyo with the Olympics sevens squad but only as a travelling reserve.
New Zealand Rugby and the New Zealand Olympic Committee yesterday announced the men’s and women’s sevens teams to compete at the Games, with All Blacks and Blues sensation Clarke the shock omission.
Clarke skipped the Blues’ Super Rugby Transtasman competition with the intention of playing at the Olympics but was not among the final
12 players selected to represent New Zealand in Tokyo. He will, however, be travelling with the squad as one of three reserves.
Both sides go to the Games with a world No 1 ranking and will be eyeing a place on the podium.
The women’s team features seven players who claimed silver at the
2016 Rio Games, while six men will be returning for their second Olympics.
The men’s team is rich in experience, with co-captain Tim Mikkelson the most capped sevens player in the game’s history. He’s joined by Scott Curry and Sam Dickson, who have more than 50 World Series tournament appearances each.
Their experience is complimented by young talent, including Chiefs outside back Etene Nanai-Seturo and travelling reserve Will Warbrick, who was discovered at the Ignite7 talent identification tournament in 2018.
Men’s sevens coach Clark Laidlaw said it was the toughest team selection he had been involved in.
“Going to Olympics is the pinnacle of four or five years’ work. We were conscious of that as coaches and selectors, so we made sure we were really clear on how we want to play the game, where the players were at, and picked the best team to go forward.”
Laidlaw highlighted the need for a versatile squad.
“When you’ve only got 12 players for one tournament, and it could be 40 degrees with high humidity, having players who can rotate and share the load throughout a weekend and still nail their core role is important. We’ve selected backs who can change positions and that is genuinely important.”
Laidlaw also emphasised the importance of the entire squad continuing to prepare for the Games.
“We don’t usually name a team a month out from a tournament, and we’ve got some players that got dinged up a little bit in the weekend [at a warm-up tournament in Townsville]. All the players in our contracted group need to continue to prepare as if they are going to play, and in all the conversations we’ve had, they understand that.”
More than half the women’s team has Olympic experience, while Shiray Kaka and Michaela Blyde were travelling reserves in 2016. Risaleaana Pouri-Lane has a different Olympic experience, captaining New Zealand to gold at the 2018 Buenos Aires Youth Olympics.
Since the 2016 Olympics, the women’s sevens team has won 16 of 22 World Series tournaments, the Sevens World Cup and Commonwealth Games gold.
“The internal competition we have has really driven this group. We’ve got a spine that operates really well who we have massive faith in, but then we’ve got these great young players, and players I describe as hidden warriors you don’t hear much about,” said co-coach Allan Bunting.
“We’ve recently had a taste of some international sevens, and when we played against Australia in Auckland, we were off our game. We’ve had to evolve, we went back, simplified our game and narrowed our focus. The next step is the Olympics and that’s what a lot of these players have been dreaming of since 2016.”