Sevens is a simple game.
Thanks to New Zealand Rugby, some so-called forward thinkers and over-prescriptive coaches, the New Zealand challenge was turned into a complicated mess that limped out of Rio yesterday.
How New Zealand got it so wrong could equal the length of a book on the Auckland housing woes.
There is no one clear answer as to why the New Zealand side bombed out in the quarterfinals.
But rugby is a game of basics. Catch, pass, run and tackle.
The same applies in the smaller version of the game.
So to be good at it you simply have to get the best players, get them fit and ready for the game and then go out and win.
But no, apparently that is not right.
Players have to be mentally conditioned for the game. They have to be playing the sevens circuit for months and months and have some special sort of fitness for the game.
Maybe this is true, but still far and away the best asset in being an excellent sevens player is being exactly that — an excellent player — albeit in sevens or the 15-a-side game.
Despite what many people think, the depth in New Zealand rugby is not bottomless.
Sure, there are many quality players around but every team has three or four class players. Take them out — they are all All Blacks — and it is just a bunch of average to good players.
New Zealand Rugby should have simply gone to its best dozen players, told them they had to play in the sevens and shortened its sevens programme so the players could spend a bit more time with their Super rugby squads.
Instead, New Zealand Rugby sat on its hands and let the players decide.
One would love to have an employer like that.
We would all love to write the travel features instead of spending 43 days covering a resource consent hearing.
But we can’t.
The employer calls the tune and, in this facet, New Zealand Rugby got it wrong.
Guys such as Beauden Barrett, Ben Smith and Adrie Savea should have been called up and told when and how to train and prepare for the shortened version of the game.
If they did not want to, then they should have been benched for their Super rugby teams or the All Blacks.
Savea, we know, opted out but he simply just needed to be given a quiet word in his ear.
The players obviously have close connections with their Super rugby sides and needed a bit more direction from New Zealand Rugby in coming into the sevens programme.
One also wonders whether Sir Gordon Tietjens’ time has passed.
He always had a reputation of getting the best out of players and unearthing some gems.
But in this day and age when kids at primary school are head-hunted, there are no uncut diamonds to be dug up.
Anyone any good is long gone from the sevens programme once they are out of high school.
Yes, New Zealand was unlucky and got a couple of tough calls in the quarterfinal.
As a game, sevens is a lottery in which teams can win a game through a lucky bounce of the ball.
But standards have risen in sevens and unfortunately New Zealand — and the team is not the All Blacks — has not risen to that required level.