{"id":45949,"date":"2025-09-27T07:23:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T07:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/45949\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T07:23:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T07:23:08","slug":"all-blacks-star-in-tears-as-father-sings-anthem-at-eden-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/45949\/","title":{"rendered":"All Blacks star in tears as father sings anthem at Eden Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

All Blacks wing Caleb Clarke was overcome with emotion at Eden Park on Saturday night after his father, former test star Eroni Clarke, delivered a surprise performance of the national anthem ahead of the Bledisloe Cup test against Australia.<\/p>\n

Eroni Clarke, who played 24 tests for New Zealand between 1992 and 1998, led the crowd in both the English and te reo M\u0101ori versions of God Defend New Zealand. <\/p>\n

Follow 1News live updates here.<\/a><\/p>\n

The 56-year-old performed on the same ground where he made more than 200 appearances for Auckland and the Blues.<\/p>\n

Unbeknownst to Caleb, his father had been invited to sing the anthem \u2014 a moment that caught the 25-year-old completely off guard. <\/p>\n

As Eroni completed his rendition, cameras captured Caleb visibly emotional, wiping away tears as he stood alongside his teammates.<\/p>\n

Caleb Clarke tears up as former All Black dad belts out anthem – Watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Caleb<\/p>\n

Caleb Clarke visibly emotional as his father Eroni delivered a surprise performance of the national anthem. (Source: Sky Sport.)<\/p>\n

Sky Sport commentator Tony Johnson said during the broadcast that Caleb had not been told in advance that his father would be singing the anthem.<\/p>\n

The emotional start to the evening was matched by a strong on-field performance, with Caleb opening the scoring just 4 minutes into the first half.<\/p>\n

Australia, who have not held the Bledisloe Cup since 2002, must win both tests outright \u2014 or secure a win and a draw \u2014 to reclaim the trophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Blacks wing Caleb Clarke was overcome with emotion at Eden Park on Saturday night after his father,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[789,51,111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-45949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-all-blacks","9":"tag-auckland","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}