'They can be very vulnerable with him': Saracens on new Clark role
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.
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.
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."
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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It’s a good, timely wake up call for NZ Rugby (seem to be a few of them lately!) - sort out the bureaucratic nonsense at board level. We can’t expect to stay the number one option without keeping fans/players engaged. We’ve obviously been bleeding players to league for years but can’t let the floodgates open (although I think this headline is hyperbolic as it’s a result of a recent Warriors pathways system where they are tracking things more closely) Understand the need to focus boys on rugby if they’re at a proud rugby school too, don’t think it’s harsh at all re Barakat in Hamilton. Reward the committed players with squad positions. An elite 1st XV system in NZ has done more for league than they even realise, think it’s good to protect our game further.
Go to commentsDon’t pay a blind bit of notice to Lukie… he likes the sound of his own voice and is always looking for something controversial to say. He has been banging on about Leinster's defensive system all season like he knows something Jacques Nienebar doesn’t. Which is the reason why he didn’t apply for the job obviously
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