The question is: "Has New Zealand Rugby Football Union done enough, considering Williams is the only All Black of any description in Tietjens' equation?"
At the conclusion of the IRB Sevens World Series, it became blatantly obvious the All Blacks Sevens looked anaemic in some respects.
Injuries dictated terms and players' fitness, especially those who came from outside the inner circle of the cult of tap 'n' go and no-look passes, were finding it difficult to heck the pace.
For sevens to remain in the Olympics grid, the presence of XV "stars" will always be a bargaining point for the committee's continual stamp of approval.
Whether Fiji coach Ben Ryan picks rugby league star Jarryd Hayne, that is "the Hayne Train" of the NFL fame, is another story.
Let's stop beating around the bush. Tietjens would have granted a Rio visa to the likes of Ben Smith, Ardie Savea and Beauden Barrett, had they so much as looked at him sideways.
It's not a case of casting aspersions on the coach's perceived sense of double standards but simply an endorsement of the class the trio exude, so much so that factors such as fitness would have become secondary and man management taken precedence.
It is no disrespect to an ageing but affable Messam, Hayne or Williams, the ultimate diplomat, who will overcome cramps to yield selfies with starry-eyed fans receiving an autographed boot or torn jersey during the Games.
The NZRU, echoing the sentiments of the International Rugby Union (IRB), recognise the platform sevens can provide for the growth and acceptance of rugby globally.
But that sense of appreciation, it appears, doesn't extend to chasing glory at all cost in Rio or, for that matter, Tokyo in 2020.
In the game of poker, the NZRU is going to call the stone-cold bluff of sevens that gold, silver or bronze at the Olympics is going to eclipse their royal flush of William Webb Ellis Trophy, Four Nations Cup and the Bledisloe Cup.
But sevens is a fickle code, conceived from a one-night stand, as darts and twenty20 cricket were in the form of illegitimate children of breweries and costume manufacturers.
As intoxicating as it may seem to outsiders at the thought of a commoner's ascendancy as heir to the throne, the rugby monarchy will scupper any such lines of succession purely through a lack of interest.
That, of course, doesn't mean sevens will stop trying if Sir Clive Woodward's watch-that-space endorsement of the simpler game, easier-to-play sevens format eclipsing XV rugby is anything to go by.
Is sevens such a marketable commodity that anyone can play and everyone can win?
Kenya winning the Singapore leg in April jumps out like retired Springbok lock Victor Matfield. It was the East African nation's maiden IRB Series crown in 115 tournaments of trying and their 629th match.
It would have had credibility except that they did not just beat the Rio top seeds, Fiji, but thrashed the Pacific Islanders 30-7 in the final.
At the end of the historic statement, both sides huddled together on the park for a prayer in the mould of netballers.
Samoa won in the next leg in Paris but lost to minnows Portugal in the Rio qualifiers, which is more plausible because that would not have been on the Islanders' script.
But Scotland beating South Africa 21-15 in the final leg in London for another historic maiden crown becomes a little harder to swallow.
Are the Blitzbokke and ABs Sevens, akin to Fiji, also underplaying their favouritism for the global cause?
Hey, it's all good for rugby in its quest to reach the magical 15 million target by 2026 and make sevens a mainstay in Olympics, a global event that is desperately wanting to make its image sexier.
The harsh reality is Fiji, South Africa and the All Blacks Sevens remain the favourites for gold medal in a code of unwanted rugby XV professionals.
