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'They can be very vulnerable with him': Saracens on new Clark role

(Photo by Lynne Cameron/Getty Images)

Mark McCall has explained the reason why Calum Clark was kept on at Saracens in a newly created role after he retired from playing following last June’s Championship title win over Ealing. The 32-year-old played just once in the second flight campaign, lining out in the May home win over Ampthill.  

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However, rather than look to continue his career with the club back in the Gallagher Premiership, it was decided that Clark – one of the infamous Barbarians gang of 13 from last October – would retire and instead put to use a degree in psychology by becoming Saracens’ new wellbeing and personal development manager, a role he began in July. 

Clark had a controversial career in which his talent largely went unfulfilled. Capped just once for England in a pre-2015 World Cup friendly versus France, he had stints at Leeds and Northampton before he was signed by Saracens in 2017.  

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What happened when RugbyPass went behind the scenes with the Saracens women’s team

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What happened when RugbyPass went behind the scenes with the Saracens women’s team

He made 57 appearances for the club across his four seasons but rather than see him leave in the summer, an offer was made to Clark to take up a new position where he is working in tandem with David Jones, the Saracens head of personal development who has been helping the Londoners for quite some time. 

Asked by RugbyPass to explain the rationale behind keeping Clark on board as something other than a player, Saracens boss McCall said: “Over the years most English clubs are very good at physically, tactically and technically preparing rugby players for games. 

“All clubs have probably been less good at helping the players emotionally and helping them with their mental wellbeing with all the new pressures that exist in high-level sport and Calum has been brought on board to help us in that area. Calum, as a player, would admit that he probably never reached the potential that he had because of his inability to cope with some of the emotions in the game, the highs and lows. 

“The players respect him enormously because they played alongside him over the years and they feel he is a safe person to go and speak to about how they are feeling and they can be very vulnerable with him and we think that is really important.”

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It was May 2019, shortly before that season’s Premiership final versus Exeter, when Clark spoke in-depth to RugbyPass about his reputation in the game and in particular about a trip taken to a Venezuela prison in Caracas to broaden his horizons. “I guess, I’d like to think I’m quite socially conscious,” he said at the time. 

“The gangs and the prison, the work they do to rehabilitate people is something that really interests me, partly because of my own history and my own experiences of mistakes and doing things wrong. I maybe have a natural affinity and empathy for young people who make mistakes, I guess.”

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J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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