Sevens: Injuries leave New Zealand men's coach unsure of Cape Town team

The All Blacks Sevens celebrate with their trophy after winning the Dubai leg of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series. Photo / Getty Images

With injuries plaguing the New Zealand men's sevens team, head coach Clark Laidlaw is unsure they'll be able to field at next week's Cape Town Sevens.

Working out how to fill those gaps will take up a good chunk of the next 24 to 48 hours.

The All Blacks Sevens squad won the first tournament of this season's HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series in Dubai this morning, with a 21-5 win over USA in the Cup final. The men's victory makes it a double win for New Zealand at the Dubai Sevens after the national women's side took out their tournament the day before.

The New Zealand men's team, now sitting at the top of the HSBC World Sevens Series standings on 22 points, went into the final without co-captain Scott Curry, Akuila Rokolisoa, Sam Dickson and Regan Ware due to injuries. Stepping out for that final match included Luke Masirewa, Tone Ng Shiu, Dylan Collier, Ngarohi McGarvey-Black, co-captain Sione Molia, Andrew Knewstubb and Vilimoni Koroi.

The All Blacks Sevens celebrate with their trophy after winning the Dubai leg of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series. Photo / Getty Images

"It's been an unusual 10 days to lose three guys before we kicked the ball then lose another three within the tournament, Laidlaw said.

"It's the first time it's happened to us so to crack on and you know, pull a win off with nine players is something we're going to be ... really proud of," he said.

Laidlaw said he was "hugely proud" of the men to secure wins against the USA, England and a strong Scotland team on finals day and to go throughout the whole tournament unbeaten.

"To play the way that we did, but to win six games, it's actually the first they've won six games in about two years," Laidlaw said.

The All Blacks Sevens were undefeated in the tournament beating Wales 28-7, Spain 28-17 and USA 24-7 on day one, before taking wins in the finals day with a 21-7 victory over Scotland and a tough 7-5 win over England in the semifinal before the Cup final.

Despite the loss of players to injuries, Laidlaw said it was an encouraging start to the season. However, with their second tournament of the series and last for the year in Cape Town just six days away, his focus was on putting a team forward.

"We're actually really short of players, I'm not entirely sure we going to have a team for next week," Laidlaw said.

He said they had a lot of work to do over the next 24-40 hours to figure out what to do and "try and get some guys over to South Africa".

"But we'll recover, we'll dust ourself off and you know, we'll just take the week to really recover well and build back up toward next Saturday."

The injured players will be assessed and any replacements will be announced in coming days.

After the match, Curry said he was impressed with team saying Collier, Molia Knewstubb "really lead from the front" and the younger ones, which included Northland's Scott Gregory experiencing his World Series debut in the black jersey.

"It's obviously a really good start for us as a team," Curry said from Dubai.

"This year's all about qualifying for Tokyo 2020 so yeah, we wanted to come here and win the tournament so we've done that. So guess the next step is being really consistent throughout the series."

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