Webber calls time on mesmeric All Blacks Sevens career

Joe Webber has called time on his legendary 15-year career with the All Blacks Sevens.

During his time wearing a black jersey the 32-year-old was a five-time HSBC SVNS Series champion, competed at three Olympic Games, won an Olympic silver medal and two Commonwealth Games medals (silver and bronze).

In the social media campaign that accompanied the news that Webber had hung up his boots, New Zealand Sevens said, “he leaves a legacy that runs deep within the All Blacks Sevens. Forever part of the fabric of this team.”

His retirement marks the end of another era for the All Blacks Sevens. In recent years the team has seen fellow stalwarts Tim Mikkelseon, Tom Curry, Sam Dickson and Kurt Baker all retire in the years since the delayed 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

It is, in part, this changing of the guard which has seen the national team not add to their collection of 14 HSBC SVNS Series titles since 2023.

Just a year after he made his All Blacks Sevens debut as an 18-year-old, Webber won the first of his Series crowns.

In 2014 he was among those that won an Olympic silver medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and took part in his first Olympic Games two years later.

Five years later in 2021 he was a member of the squad that picked up silver at a desolate Tokyo Stadium. The road to 2021 was by no means smooth.

An injury picked up a day before the 2018 Commonwealth Games on Australia’s Gold Coast meant he had to watch his teammates win gold from afar.

 

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Then we did not see him back on the pitch until a year later as he battled back from reactive arthritis.

Former All Blacks Sevens coach Clark Laidlaw described Webber as “one of the best attacking players in the game of sevens” upon his return for the 2019 edition of Hong Kong Sevens.

After he bagged bronze at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and claimed his fifth World Series Championship – during which time he played his 50th Series tournament – he took a year out between 2023 and 2024.

That time was spent completing a Te Tohu Paetahi (Maori immersion course) at the University of Waikato.

“My koroua (grandfather) was part of the generation who were beaten at school for speaking Maori,” Webber said in 2024.

“The language was lost in our family so it was important with the revitalisation to pass it down to my kids before it’s too late.

“My kids are 5, 7 and 10. They’ve been speaking te reo (Maori language) for three years. I don’t want them to go through the same uncertainty with their identity as I did.

“It was hard work, like being an athlete I had to put the mahi (work) in. Learning what really matters has been huge.”

In Paris at the 2024 Summer Games, Webber became a three-time Olympian as the All Blacks Sevens. The side placed fifth overall on the final day of competition with a play-off victory against Ireland.

Webber took part in his final tournament for the All Blacks Sevens at the 2025 Singapore SVNS last April.

At that tournament New Zealand slipped to an eighth-place finish in another stop in a disappointing season that saw the team finish seventh overall.

But, even if that last trip for Webber was not coated in glory, there is little deny thing that when in full flight the back was one of the most entertaining players to watch on the Series.

From his knack for winning or the effortlessness at how the 32-year-old could beat opponents, any time Webber was on the pitch you watched. Because you wanted to see that sprinkling of stardust.