WELLINGTON –
New Zealand's team bidding for a rugby sevens gold medal at next year's Tokyo
Olympics will not include any All Blacks after several approached declined to
be involved.
New Zealand
Rugby said on Thursday that four players - Caleb Clarke, Etene Nanai-Seturo, Salesi
Rayasi and Scott Gregory - had been granted leave from their Super Rugby teams
to be part of the sevens campaign ahead of the Tokyo Games.
NZR had
begun approaching Super Rugby teams last September to gauge interest from 15s
players, including current All Blacks, about transitioning to sevens for the
Tokyo campaign.
“At that
point a number of them ruled themselves out when we got responses either from
the players or their agents,” NZR's Head of High Performance Mike Anthony told
Stuff Media.
“At the end
of the day those (All Blacks) players have made a decision that they want to
focus their energy elsewhere, given the challenges at the end of the year and
coaching and so on.
“They have
made that choice pretty early on in the process. So they let us know, which
allowed us to focus on the group that were keen to be a part of it.”
Sonny Bill
Williams was the only capped All Blacks player in New Zealand's squad for the
Rio Olympics.
Sonny Bill Williams was the only capped 15s All Blacks player in New Zealand's squad for the Rio Olympics. Photo: Reuters / Jeremy Lee
Several
others, including Ardie Savea and Beauden Barrett, indicated they would be keen
on joining the sevens programme ahead of the Olympics but all subsequently
withdrew.
Then coach
Gordon Tietjens, who left after his team lost to eventual gold medallists Fiji
in the quarter-finals, later wrote he felt he had lost the support of the
organisation and pressure had been placed upon the players to withdraw.
All four of
the Super Rugby players named on Thursday have been previously involved in the
All Blacks Sevens team.
Anthony
added that NZR had to be mindful that introducing new players into the core
group of centrally contracted Sevens players had to be managed carefully.
“One of the
biggest considerations in this process has been the team environment,” Anthony
said. “We have a
group of contracted players that have won the Commonwealth Games Gold and Rugby
World Cup Sevens last year, so were very mindful that those coming in need to complement
that group.”
The All
Blacks sevens team clinched the Commonwealth Games gold medal on the Gold Coast
and then won the World Cup in San Francisco last year.
They
finished third behind Fiji and the United States on the 2018/19 World Sevens
Series and qualified automatically for the Tokyo competition.