Just to remind you.
“Noah Caluori: TikTok star who catches balls like Israel Folau.” The Times
“What makes Noah Caluori such a special athlete?” The Telegraph
“Are we witnessing the birth of greatness?” TNT Sports.
Sitting at home watching his personal five-try demolition of Sale Sharks back in October, I too reacted, dropping all other thoughts for the planned Sunday Times column and switching to Caluori. We couldn’t get enough of him — press or public.
True, Mark McCall, his Saracens coach, cried out for caution from day one. Maybe those words would have been heeded had Steve Borthwick not reacted by including the 19-year-old in a developmental capacity within the England autumn international squad.
“Point of difference” is one of the phrases doing the rounds within the professional coaching game. And Caluori seemed to have a towering one that worked massively in his favour in an England set-up that has sometimes seemed obsessed with cross and box-kicks.
The teenager is 6ft 5in. Against Sale, his aerial timing was so good you would have sworn that, at full stretch, he had the wingspan of an albatross.
It appeared the perfect match. Ah, but this is past tense. The wonderkid has disappeared from the face of Prem rugby. At international level he made a tryscoring appearance for England A against Spain before fading from our consciousnesses.
Could all the rugby critics, some of whom have been playing and watching this game for what sometimes seems an eternity, be so absolutely wrong? McCall’s warning was not heeded and to remind readers of the headlines is to risk perhaps deserved mockery on the part of the public. But here are the “hard facts”, as the RFU’s Bill Sweeney might put it.
The teenager has played seven Prem games and is the leading tryscorer on 12. Apart from the five scores against Sale, there was a four-try cameo against Newcastle Red Bulls in January, after which The Times headline read: “Noah Caluori gives Steve Borthwick a nudge with four tries for Saracens.”
Newcastle’s players can only stand and admire as Caluori runs in four tries in the Gallagher Prem clash in JanuaryGaspafotos/MB Media/Getty Images
It clearly wasn’t much of a nudge. Perhaps not helping his case was that, earlier in the season, he looked shaky under an aerial bombardment from Bath and Henry Arundell.
The absence of the TikTok star when England’s Six Nations squad was announced barely merited a mention in dispatches. His club have also decided to err on the side of patience.
In the past two weeks, Saracens have come up against Bath and Northampton Saints, the leading two teams in the league. McCall’s side entered the period in desperate need of victories to keep their play-off hopes alive, however they were hammered 62-15 by Bath and then Northampton’s late winner at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday leaves them 12 points off fourth place.
In a game Saracens simply had to win, McCall opted against including Caluori in the match-day 23. While the former giants of the English game were seeing their play-off hopes all but disappear, the five-star wing was dropping down to the second tier, Champ Rugby, where he played with the Saracens-affiliated Ampthill, far from the hyperbole, even further from pressure.
They were at home to Richmond and won 62-14 — a not dissimilar scoreline to that Saracens were on the wrong end of at Bath. For the record, Caluori scored one of the home side’s ten tries, but he would have learnt a lot more playing at the Recreation Ground. Indeed, he might well have added to his tryscoring tally in the Prem.
Elliott, 22, has done well for Saracens and doesn’t deserve to be droppedDavid Rogers/Getty Images
Saracens’ first choice, Tobias Elliott, scored two tries in that otherwise dismal game for his team, the first a straightforward run pretty much straight from the kick-off. For all the negatives that come from being found out in one aspect of your game, there are plenty of positives when a wing touches down. Elliott, 22, has been in excellent form. He carved his way in and out of the Saints rearguard on Saturday for a try I am not sure the developing Caluori would have scored. Elliott doesn’t deserve to be dropped and there is much to like about Saracens’ man on the opposite wing, the tackle-busting Rotimi Segun.
If the downturn in Caluori’s season has affected his confidence, there is an argument to start with two more confident wings in Elliott and Segun. Or at least there was — there isn’t now. Next week, Saracens return to Bath, where McCall’s men were metaphorically “punched in the face”, to quote their director of rugby, a little over a week ago. Experience isn’t going to get them through to the last eight of the Investec Champions Cup. Bath are leaving Saracens and their past behind.
To turn form and reality on its head, McCall needs to be bold. Without freeing themselves from the fear of losing, this Saracens side will lack the imagination and moments of magic to win. That old aura has gone from their game and Bath, with the grounded Johann van Graan in charge, will not be caught out by the danger of complacency.
So Saracens require that certain something — possibly to be plucked from the Bath sky. Caluori has spectacular physical gifts; no one doubts that. He also lacks experience, and I am sure that McCall sent him to the Champ with the best intentions for both the young man and Saracens.
But Europe is realistically Saracens’ last hope, and as hopes go it is a straw-clutching one. Gamble on Caluori to play against Bath and pick him to play for the rest of the Prem season too, where the pressure is all but off after those recent defeats.
There are not many players in England with that point of difference to their game. Don’t waste them in the second tier.
Bath v Saracens
Investec Champions Cup
Saturday, 3pm
TV Premier Sports