Sevens: Tietjens loses star early to Maori team

The New Zealand sevens team are set to lose their best player for the final two tournaments of the International Rugby Board series.

Cory Jane starred in Hong Kong and in Singapore but coach Gordon Tietjens said he was wanted by the New Zealand Maori side for the Churchill Cup tournament in Canada in June.

Tietjens admitted there was nothing he could do to stop him leaving.

"It's great that we promote players from my side into bigger teams like the New Zealand Maori side," Tietjens said. "We are discussing it all the time. The headache I have is that there are not enough players playing the game in New Zealand because we don't have tournaments.

"Where do you find the players from? It's pretty tough to put a player who is not conditioned to the game of sevens into the side."

New Zealand are fourth in the standings heading into the final two tournaments in Paris and London and Tietjens indicated he would focus on getting more younger players involved in the game when he returned home.

"Of concern for me is, when you look at the national tournament in Queenstown, and Canterbury, the top province in New Zealand, couldn't form a side."

Meanwhile, the Singapore and Paris tournaments are likely to be dropped from the IRB circuit next season, with Melrose in Scotland and Adelaide tipped to replace them.

It is understood the series could begin as early as September with the Melrose and London tournaments, followed by Dubai and George in December, Wellington and Los Angeles in February and Adelaide and then Hong Kong to stage the final tournament in March.

The series now begins in Dubai at the end of November and ends in London in early June.

The team's dismal form in the series continued last night when they were bundled out in the quarter-finals of the Singapore tournament 21-14 by Argentina.

Tietjens was left to lament a series of missed tackles.

"You take your hats off to Argentina. They took their opportunities and we got penalised for three missed tackles and that really cost us and it put us under pressure," Tietjens said.

"We also took a couple of wrong options and that players lacked sound decision-making at critical times."

Tietjens felt the refereeing in the tournament was below par.

"I would have to dispute two of the calls that we were penalised for, holding onto the ball - and obviously they slowed the game down, went to lineouts and got the ball back.

"I don't like commenting on referees' performances but as coaches we want consistency and we haven't got that right across the board. Out there today there were two calls that cost us."

- NZPA