The former occurred about three weeks ago and featured matches between squad members of an intensity comparable with World Series' semifinals. For those familiar with Tietjens, the national men's sevens coach for 22 years who has won more tournaments than he probably remembers, it would have been business as usual. For those players not used to such training techniques, the latter would have struck them as a particularly cruel and unusual punishment. "You learn a lot about the players individually, who is going to support and back each other up," Tietjens said of the SAS component which was designed to check players' resilience. Such toil might be the secret ingredient for gold, but regardless, Tietjens is expecting the by-product to be an esprit de corps unmatched by any other team.

Source: New Zealand Herald July 03, 2016 07:07 UTC