National sevens rugby coach Gordon Tietjens has never had a challenge like this.
Tietjens delivered wonders last season when New Zealand won the first World Sevens Series after leaders Fiji fell at the final hurdle in Paris.
He did it without ever being able to field the same team consistently.
Internationals, Super 12, NPC - they all took players from him. So he had to scout the provinces for replacements.
The team he finished the World Series with showed little similarity to the one he started with in Dubai many months before.
But he won. That fact, probably more than his first NPC win with second division Bay of Plenty, last week earned him the Coach of the Year award.
Now he goes again. It all starts with the national sevens championship in Palmerston North today and tomorrow. Tietjens has to produce a competitive team for the Durban tournament this month - with most of his players heading to all parts of the world with other teams.
Take the All Blacks, for instance: Christian Cullen, Jonah Lomu and Bruce Reihana.
Or New Zealand A: Caleb Ralph, Malili Muliaina, Orene Ai'i, Rico Gear, Justin Wilson and Rua Tipoki.
Or injured: Brad Fleming.
"All those in New Zealand A were part of the successful teams in the World Series. Now they're all gone," he said.
For fill-ins, he could have looked at division two and three players - but the best are travelling to Samoa and Tonga with the Divisional team.
Then there's national under-19 trials, and the National Youth team leave for Britain early next week.
For Tietjens, it's as big a challenge as he has faced in his seven years as national coach.
But his knowledge of players, of sevens skills and, in particular, his ability to get them into the right sort of shape will see him get the team going.
Tietjens warns it's going to take time. His major worry? The conditioning of the players. Tomorrow he names 15 players for a training squad, and he says he will work them into shape.
That means tough times ahead for those players. But at the end of it are trips to Durban, Dubai, Brisbane, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, London and Cardiff.
"I'm finding it a real concern at the moment, the lack of players competing at sevens tournaments," Tietjens said.
"I went to the northern region tournament last weekend [won by Wellington] and the fitness levels were certainly not there - probably because we've only just finished our domestic 15-a-side competition.
"Now we're straight into sevens, and my concern - and it's a real concern - is that in just two weeks we're playing in the first World Series, with Dubai straight after it.
"So my expectations of the nationals certainly aren't huge. I've got a lot of work to do, especially in finding some backs with pace. We'll certainly lack experience."
- NZPA
Rugby: Tietjens' sevens mission not easy
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