Newly knighted Sir Gordon Tietjens brings the All Blacks Sevens squad members back to Mount Maunganui's Blake Park this week for a crucial camp to decide who makes the cut for the Rugby World Cup Sevens in Moscow from June 28-30.
Tietjens has invited 20 players to the camp from which he will select 12 to go to Russia and four non-travelling reserves. The All Blacks Sevens will be announced at 2.30pm tomorrow after the fourth trial game at Gordon Tietjens Field, Blake Park. The games are at 10.30am, 1.30pm and 4.30pm today, and 10.30am Thursday.
The World Cup Sevens comes after New Zealand won their 11th IRB World Series title in 14 years last month - all under the guidance of 57-year-old Tauranga resident Tietjens.
He had to use 26 players this year to cover injuries, which made the series win even more memorable.
"What has been really pleasing is the consistency we displayed in the world series," Tietjens said.
"We have been in seven finals of the nine tournaments - incredible really. We only won two but what that has done is prove just how competitive it is.
"I have always said you can win the world series without winning a tournament as long as you are there and thereabouts in semis and finals, as some teams don't get up for every tournament.
"The younger players really stepped up when we needed them and have learned from the core of experienced players. I lost (DJ) Forbes and (Tomasi) Cama at different times in the year, and that is the nature of sevens rugby now."
Tietjens says it is getting harder to win every year as the standard is improving rapidly.
"I started coaching back in 1994 and it was generally Fiji and New Zealand, and Hong Kong was the only tournament we went to there. Australia were quite strong then and Samoa and England at times.
"But as the world series has gone on, we have seen six or seven teams that have emerged as serious contenders to win a series and tournaments. Some of the minnow nations like Kenya and the US have made finals, so you have to be on your game now. It is really competitive, and the analysis done on players and teams is huge.
"You have seen England and South Africa have got full-time players that are training every day as a side and they have bigger squads than we have.
"We always set the benchmark and generally had lots of teams wondering what we did differently. They have looked at how we train and our nutrition. I remember in 2002 in Manchester, at Commonwealth Games, the English were on the grandstand of where we were training and the Samoan physio was videoing our training session behind a hedge."
Top seeds New Zealand are in pool D with Georgia, the US and Canada at the Moscow event .