He's been to Sydney, Invercargill and nearly everywhere in between, but Bethlehem College's rugby field on a sun-baked Sunday morning has given new national women's rugby sevens coach Sean Horan the ideal chance to survey Bay of Plenty's potential Olympic talent.
Horan was a keen observer on Sunday as 22 of Bay of Plenty's up-and-coming sevens players were put through their paces as part of the New Zealand Rugby Union's Go4Gold initiative. Horan is spearheading the trials ahead of the rugby event's introduction at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Horan, the former Bay of Plenty Steamers coach, said the development days, which started last month in Taranaki, were an important building block in the reinvigoration of women's sevens in New Zealand.
As well as Taranaki, Horan has now visited Tasman, Auckland, North Harbour and Bay of Plenty, with Hawke's Bay, Southland, Otago, Northland and Counties-Manukau to come.
New Zealand opted not to send a team to the recent Hong Kong tournament, just as it had not so long ago with tournaments in Dubai and London. Horan, the first full-time women's sevens coach employed by the NZRU, said it was key to build a base of players first that would sustain the game through to Rio.
"If we'd gone to the Hong Kong, Dubai and London rounds then it would have come at the expense of this. People need to trust what we're doing because if there's one thing rugby does well, it's high performance sport.
"Our talent ID is superb and we'll screen 1000 players, with 200-250 of those put into our apprenticeship programme.
"For me it's about following the strategic plan, which is to walk before we can run, build some strong foundations so the house isn't built on stilts but is actually something that lasts, not just for the next four years, but beyond."
Bay of Plenty's talent was tagged at three sub-union nights in Tauranga, Rotorua and Whakatane last week, although only the Tauranga muster was well supported.
Several potential recruits were away playing for New Zealand in a transtasman touch series but Chad Tuoro, who is driving the sevens campaign in the province, said the door was still open for players to get involved.
Youth was the focus on Sunday, which was fine with Horan who said it was the younger players who would form the mainstay of the national women's programme through to Rio.
"Every province I've been to brings something unique to the table. Women's rugby isn't strong in the Bay and hasn't been for the last few years, although Chad's doing an awesome job of getting things re-established and hopefully getting some sort of club or sub-union competition started, which is where the game can really grow.
"Southland is pretty much all secondary school players, Otago have an established women's game already because of the university there, Canterbury have a good set up because they have supported women's rugby and invested in it, Manawatu have provided five gold nuggets [high performance players] already, Auckland are strong because of their success with the Storm [women's provincial team] and Waikato look like they'll have an NPC team this season.
"There's a ton of untapped talent."
Horan had been to Sydney to the Australian nationals, scouting what they were doing, what Kiwi-born players were involved and looking at shared initiatives to boost the game in both countries.