Dubai: New Zealand Sevens coach Gordon Tietjens is looking to reverse his side’s fortunes in round two of the nine-stage HSBC Sevens World Series in Dubai next month after getting off to a poor start to the season in Australia.

The All Blacks have won 12 out of 15 IRB Sevens World Series to date, but got off to their worst start to a season since 2011/12 last month, losing to England 31-7 in the quarter-finals at the Gold Coast.

Tietjens, however, believes his side has nothing to worry about heading into round two of the series, the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens at The Sevens stadium from December 4 to 6.

“I felt I never had a very strong bench at the Gold Coast,” he said. “And in any team going into any tournament you need a strong bench, because otherwise you are reliant on the top players to play every minute of every game.

“We are in a really tough series now, with six or seven teams who on their day will beat any side. Samoa, whom we beat quite comfortably in the pool stage, went on to nearly beat Fiji in the Gold Coast final, and that’s how competitive it really is.

“And, of course, we fell against England, but the plus side was we won every other game by 30-plus points, so we have to take that particular loss on the chin and look to move forward to the next tournament.”

Tietjens warned the opposition that New Zealand would be much more competitive in Dubai.

“We have got some new players that have come into the sevens squad training hard to secure a sevens contract. It’s looking pretty good, in the sense that we have players solely focusing on sevens moving forward. We should be in a lot better condition than we were in the Gold Coast.

“The preparation and planning we have done, moving forward to Dubai, is quite superb. It’s always important in a world series that you start well, so the next tournament in Dubai is very, very important to us to be a contender to win the world series,” he added.

Record five-time Dubai winners New Zealand will be up against Samoa, Scotland and Japan in Pool B of this year’s event — a stage of the series Tietjens said he always looks forward to.

“Dubai is one of my favourite tournaments,” he said. “We haven’t won the title there for a couple of years [since 2009], but it’s a great tournament, and is really well supported, with 50,000 to 60,000 people turning out each day.

“For us, we don’t look any further than the pool when we play there. We’ve always got a tough pool, but then you’ve also got the brilliant conditions, you are guaranteed fine weather, there’s a great track and a magnificent stadium — so overall, it’s a great, great tournament.”

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