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'I'd love to': Caleb Clarke confirms NRL desire after next year's World Cup

(Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

While he’s a huge South Sydney fan, All Blacks winger Caleb Clarke is taking special notice of the Melbourne Storm this season after their recruitment of Will Warbrick.

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An Olympic silver medal-winning Sevens player with New Zealand in Tokyo, Warbrick switched to rugby league this season and has already been pushing for NRL selection.

He was in the mix for the Storm side to take on the Warriors on Monday night until he contracted COVID-19, which also prevented Clarke catching up with his good mate while in Melbourne for the inaugural Super Round.

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    What the All Blacks squad could look like halfway through Super Rugby Pacific | Aotearoa Rugby Pod

    “I’m really looking forward to Will making his debut,” said Clarke, who was a travelling reserve with the Tokyo Olympic team.

    “He’s such an athlete – when you see him he’s taller than me, he’s stronger than me.

    “A few of the boys were a bit surprised when he told us he’d signed with the Storm but I was just like, I can see it.

    “With his aerial skills, he’s fast and strong, he really suits the game of league.”

    Clarke has also been linked to the NRL, with his New Zealand rugby contract still to be finalised.

    He said next year’s Rugby World Cup remained a goal but playing rugby league was part of his future plans.

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    “That’s definitely one thing that I’d love to do,” the 23-year-old said.

    “I’m a big Rabbitohs supporter and I talk to the Rabbitohs boys every now and then.

    “So yeah, I’d love to and I don’t know when but it’ll definitely be something that I want to tick off as a life goal.”

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    Clarke said it was a big risk for a player to turn his back on playing sevens for his country or as a 15-a-side player, the huge money on offer in Japan or Europe, to try his hand at another sport.

    “He wanted to have a shot at different things and he got to tick off an awesome achievement of playing in the Olympics and as an athlete there’s not much more you can do,” Clarke said.

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    “I’m just really proud of him.”

    Clarke still has another week to serve on a three week suspension so will be in the stands as his ladder-leading Blues take on Fijian Drua on Saturday afternoon at AAMI Park.

    He said that had their mid-season review and were determined to continue their winning form against Australian opponents.

    “We’ve all talked about and how special it is to be in this sort of position and how much we’ve grown as a team over the last few years under Leon’s (MacDonald) coaching.

    “It’s just been really awesome to just see it all come to fruition and we’re excited to get stuck into the Aussie teams.”

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    J
    JW 11 minutes ago
    Super Rugby Pacific has turned the ship around in the right direction

    LOL thats the same mentality the French saying about the Top 14. Why change their ridiculous comp if its performing well with investors?


    There is always better JWH.


    It depends really what you want out of Super Rugby and NPC. Currently Super Rugby fills both niche’s, it has the up and commers as well as the stars performing at the top. Reducing further obviously improves further on what has been the reason everybody is enjoying this season.


    There is definitely a question of balance and what going further that way removes. But theres a few reasons. What coaches are telling us is it is also a struggle to find the talent to fill out a strong SR side. There is talk of increasing financial constraints. Currently there is a lopsided (random) amount of derby home and away match ups in each conference, so going 5v5 instead of 6v6 may mean we have a full derby round for each conference (currently I think they play just 3 teams twice), or even squeeze in a full dbl round comp. Going a larger number of teams means they need to go much larger to fairer league setup.


    But they need to add or remove JWH, one or the other, and I was merely pointing out that adding, like you’re suggestion, is likely going to introduce just what we all (or at least what the person I was replying to was saying) think the comp has been remedied of, having a weak team. The 5v5 I referenced was 3 Aus teams, with the other two filling the landscape their, and 5 here. That’s what NZR wanted to kick off for the COVID year but ARU threw a hissy fit. If going to 10 is the right thing to do maybe it’s an NZ team that needs to be dropped, so Moana would remain here and Drua continue to be with the aussies, thats the other possible 5 v 5 setup (which would just be 10 if they found a way for all to play even games).

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