"There was never much communication coming my way from any of the Super 15 teams during or after ITM Cup so I guessed by that that I wasn't really being looked at," Arnold said yesterday.
"The Chiefs asked me to be involved in their wider training group but I turned it down - I made it pretty clear I'd rather play sevens and travel the world than hold a tackle bag in Hamilton all summer."
That's not to say he won't get called up by the Chiefs at some stage in the season, with franchises allowed to bypass their wider training groups in favour of specialists. However Arnold would rather play the abbreviated form of the game anyway after winning Commonwealth Games gold last year in Delhi.
"I finished the season relatively happy with my fifteens form, although I went a bit quiet in the middle of the season, and the short turnaround between games was enjoyable - less training, more playing. It helped too that I saw more ball than previous years.
"But this year with sevens, with the Gold Coast and Japan on the schedule and talk of Argentina joining next year, means a bit more touring, which I'm not complaining about.
"I enjoy my sevens and this time of the year is always good when the series rolls around. Delhi gave us a big goal to strive for last year but the series is still a lot of fun."
The short ITM Cup season gave Arnold a longer lead-in to the sevens, where his focus was on getting into the gym and boosting his fitness and strength.
"Six weeks [of preparation] this year has been a luxury, I've never had that long before. There were a few injuries to get over and my fitness went downhill for the Steamers because we didn't get to the gym as much, but I've spent five weeks flogging it, with short, sharp sessions in the rower and bike and I've slowly built towards the same levels of fitness I was at 12 months ago."
As a relative veteran of the team, Arnold had a lighter workload last week at the final training camp as Tietjens put the new players through their paces.
"Titch still flogged us but he definitely gave some of us experienced guys more rest. It's never easy but he kept the new guys playing games all day to see what he could get out of them."
Sparc-funded salary top-ups for the men's team mean they might be fulltime in sevens in a few years as New Zealand builds towards medal success at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games.
By 2014 the New Zealand Rugby Union hopes to have a full-time squad of about 20 sevens players who won't be playing ITM Cup or Super Rugby.
New Zealand are looking to claim their 10th world series title this season. They are seeded first for the Gold Coast tournament with pool games against Fiji, Kenya and Niue.
