Caleb Daniel Clarke (born 29 March 1999) is a New Zealand

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

player who plays for the in the

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Building on various Southern Hem ...

competition. His position of choice is

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expres ...

. Clarke made his international debut for

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

in 2020 and has since played 12 tests.

Early life

Clarke attended

Mount Albert Grammar School Mount Albert Grammar School, commonly known as MAGS, is a co-educational state secondary school in Mount Albert in Auckland, New Zealand. It teaches students in year levels 9 to 13. , Mount Albert Grammar School is the second largest school in ...

and was first selected for the school's First XV aged 14, where he played until 2016.

Playing career

Early career

Clarke was selected for the

All Blacks Sevens The New Zealand national rugby sevens team competes in the World Rugby Sevens Series, Rugby World Cup Sevens, Summer Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games. They have won a record twelve World Rugby Sevens Series titles. The team has been of ...

in 2018, following his first season for

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

in the

Mitre 10 Cup The mitre (Commonwealth English) (; Greek: μίτρα, "headband" or "turban") or miter (American English; see spelling differences), is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of bishops and certain abbots in t ...

. Good performances for Auckland also led to Clarke's selection for the New Zealand U20's, for 2017 and 2018. In 2019, his second season of Super Rugby, Clarke also became a regular starter for the

Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

, under new Head Coach,

Leon MacDonald Leon Raymond MacDonald (born 21 December 1977) is a retired New Zealand rugby union footballer, and now head coach for the Auckland Blues rugby team, who played 56 tests for the national team, the All Blacks. He played as a first five-eighth (f ...

2020

Due to the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

pandemic, Clarke, as well as his teammates from the

Rugby Sevens team, were released to play for their provinces and Super Rugby clubs. Clarke was in career-best form following New Zealand's national lockdown, leading to his selection for the

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks ( mi, Ōpango), represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987 ...

squad for the 2020 Bledisloe Cup and

Tri Nations Series The Rugby Championship is an international rugby union competition contested annually by Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. These are the four highest ranked national teams in the Southern Hemisphere; the Six Nations is a s ...

. He made his debut for New Zealand in their 16–16 draw with the

Wallabies A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and so ...

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

Sky Stadium Wellington Regional Stadium (known commercially as Sky Stadium through naming rights) is a major sporting venue in Wellington, New Zealand. The stadium's bowl site size is . The stadium was built in 1999 by Fletcher Construction and is situa ...

. After a season-ending injury to

George Bridge George Crispin Bridge (born 1 April 1995) is a New Zealand people, New Zealand Rugby Union, rugby union player who currently plays as an Wing (rugby union), outside back for in New Zealand's domestic Mitre 10 Cup and for the in the internat ...

, Clarke started in four tests that year, on the left wing. Clarke scored his first try for the All Blacks on 14 November, in a historic first-ever loss to Argentina.

Personal life

Clarke is a first-generation New Zealander and has Samoan ancestry through his father. His father,

Eroni Clarke Eroni Clarke (born 31 March 1969) is a former New Zealand rugby union player who played for Auckland, the Blues, the Highlanders and the All Blacks at international level. Clarke made 155 appearances for Auckland, making him the fifth (equal wi ...

, who is also a former All Black, played international rugby as a centre, from 1992 to 1998.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, Caleb 1999 births New Zealand rugby union players New Zealand sportspeople of Samoan descent Blues (Super Rugby) players Auckland rugby union players Rugby union players from Auckland New Zealand international rugby sevens players Rugby union wings Living people New Zealand international rugby union players