All Blacks debutant Caleb Clarke says his heart sank when he dropped Reece Hodge’s 83 rd minute penalty after it bounced back off the post.
Clarke said yesterday it was surreal to achieve such a big goal in his life in an “emotional rollercoaster” of a debut, which saw the two sides go blow-for-blow for 89 agonising minutes before settling for a 16-all draw.
He also revealed “the first thing I thought was 'did I just lose us the game',” after gifting the Wallabies possession after Hodge’s penalty hit the post.
“The one thing that sticks out is dropping that kick off the post but just so glad to tick off something so big in my life,” he said.
"So at first my heart sank, the first thing I actually thought was 'did I just lose us the game?'”
“Then we fought back, defended our line really well, I was hoping we weren’t going to get penalised and then the turnover happened.
"I was just keen to attack, to get that first win, I thought we were there when we were right on their line.
“It was quite the emotional rollercoaster for me personally, cause it first started off with a dropped ball, and then it ended up right on their line, so still processing it all.”
In a 21-minute cameo off the bench, Clarke ran the ball four times for 56 metres and beat four defenders, as well as making one clean break.
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