Sir Gordon Tietjens is New Zealand’s legendary sevens coach with training techniques to scare the fittest players.
He’s one of the most decorated coaches at the Commonwealth Games, but where did it all begin for New Zealand’s long-time Sevens coach?
“From where he was, from a fancy-free, practical joking, happy go lucky player to where he is now. It’s bloody legendary.”
Graeme Crossman would know.
The former All Black hooker coached Bay of Plenty during the late 1970s and early 1980’s.
Brilliant one minute, dreadful the next, his Bay of Plenty side were known for their flair and exciting rugby.
“Predictably unpredictable,” was the best way to describe the side, according to Crossman.
Sitting in the loose forward trio was a tall, slender Rotorua lad with immense talent, but his off field antics were causing the coaches and management problems.
His name was Gordon Tietjens, and he was destined for greatness.
“Not that you would have picked it,” Crossman says.
“That’s the story of Titch, that’s what it’s all about, is his transformation.”
“From where he was, from a fancy-free, practical joking, happy go lucky player to where he is now. It’s bloody legendary.”
Tietjens is now regarded as the best sevens coach of all time, having been in charge of the New Zealand team for more than 20 years.
In that time he has turned New Zealand’s sevens team into one of the most successful sports teams on the planet.
He’s won four Commonwealth Games gold medals and 12 IRB Sevens World Series titles.
With the Glasgow Commonwealth Games later this month, and the Rio Olympics in 2016, Tietjens is far from finished.
This is the story of Sir Gordon Tietjens.
PREDICTABLY UNPREDICTABLE
The qualities Tietjens wants from a sevens player are the qualities he aimed for in his playing days.
A tall, athletic loose forward, Tietjens played 78 matches for Bay of Plenty between 1977 and 1987, while also spending a season playing for Waikato.
Crossman was the coach of Bay of Plenty for most of that time, and remembers Tietjens well.
“He was a pretty talented rugby player,” Crossman says. “He was a player of well above average skill and fitness and those sort of things.”
“He wasn’t huge in stature. He was tall and quite lean, and that would have held him back. He was clearly suited to his sevens achievements.”
Tietjens started as a fullback and first-five at Rotorua Boys’ High School, but became a loose forward in his later years at college.
After finishing school he spent periods playing club rugby in Rotorua and Auckland, before eventually cracking the Bay of Plenty team in 1977, making his debut against King Country in Te Kuiti.
Tietjens played a small role in the 1981 Springboks tour, taking on the tourists with the Bay of Plenty side in Rotorua.
The Bay pushed South Africa to the limit, eventually going down 29-24 as small protests went on outside the ground.
Crossman said the team in Tietjens’ time was known for their impressive potential.
“At the time the Bay of Plenty team was quite renowned for being predictably unpredictable.”
“It was a province renowned for Maori flair, even though we had a lot of European players, but they could always pull out big games from time to time, which kept everyone interested.”
Tietjens was on hand again in 1982 when Bay of Plenty dished out a record hammering to the Wallabies in Rotorua, winning the tour match 40-16.
It remains one of Australia’s biggest losses in their history.
“We were known for that sort of game,” Crossman says, “and Titch was known for that as well.”
Being small for his position, Tietjens soon turned to sevens, making his debut for New Zealand in 1983 at the Hong Kong Sevens.
“Getting selected for the New Zealand Sevens team for Hong Kong in 1983 was the highlight of my playing career,” Tietjens says.
Four years later Tietjens ended his playing days, and that’s when his transformation really started.
THE ULTIMATE PRACTICAL JOKER
“I used to enjoy myself and have a bit of fun,” Tietjens says. “That’s all part of it.”
Crossman has other ideas.
“He was a little hard to control at times,” Crossman says.
“He was the ultimate practical joker. Whilst he was in the team and when we were travelling, sometimes it was a bit of a distraction for the players.”
“The players thought it was a hoot, but when you’re trying to control and manage a team and coach them, it was always an extra thing you had to manage.”
New Zealand sevens legend and former captain Eric Rush knows all about Tietjens’ antics, and said several stories float around the rugby scene about his playing days.
“Some of the stories I’ve head about him when he was a player, he would have kicked himself out of his own team a while ago,” Rush said.
“He would have kicked his own ass I reckon.”
One of Tietjens’ pranks is now the stuff of legend. It involved a horse and the coach’s motel room. Simple as that.
“I don’t know why, but they found a horse and put it in the coaches room,” Rush says.
“A real horse. Obviously the room was on the ground floor.”
Crossman is just glad he wasn’t the victim of that prank.
“I’ve heard that story, but I think that was in Waikato,” Crossman says.
“He was always doing things, be it taking rotors out of players’ cars at training and leaving them stranded. The management always came to their rescue.”
“I think where he is now, he doesn’t quite appreciate it as much.”
Rush can testify to that, but it doesn’t stop Tietjens’ sevens teams from antics of their own.
“One time, we were in Chile, and we had a team meeting in his room,” Rush explains.
“We all left, and then Titch couldn’t find his pillow. Titch thought ‘one of you bastards has pinched it’, so he calls another team meeting and he says ‘I want my pillow back, and I want it back now’.”
“So when we left the room again, Dallas Seymour and Owen Scrimgeour found every pillow they could find in the hotel and piled it up outside his door.”
A mountain of about 200 pillows was left outside Tietjens room, and he was none too happy.
“He spat the dummy on that one,” Rush says.
“He hauled Scrimgeour and Seymour over the coals for that. Later on that night we found his pillow had fallen down the side of his bloody couch. It was a shocker.”
Then there was the time the team snuck off to McDonald’s while Tietjens walked through duty free at Auckland Airport.
Tietjens had been hammering the team in training, and the players hatched a plan which would allow them time to get a much deserved fast food release.
“We let Titch go through, he went right through customs and went off into duty free, so we all turned back,” Rush says.
“We had Craig de Goldi on the door watching for Titch, and Craig Newby, and the rest of us went in and had a feed.”
“I don’t know how the hell he did it, but Titch got back through customs.”
“You’re not allowed to do that. You are not allowed to do that, but when he saw no players on the other side, he came back, walked in, and we’re all in there having fries and burgers.”
“I’ll give him credit, he didn’t say too much at the time because we were in public, but I got an ear full on the plane all the way to Hong Kong.”
“When we got to Hong Kong those first few sessions were beauties, mate, they were beauties.”
Tietjens may not take it well at the time, but he said those pranks are all part of being in a team atmosphere.
“You never play the game too early,” he says.
“Off the field you have a lot of fun, and we encourage that in the sevens team.”
“I think the culture we have in our sevens team has certainly been responsible for the success we’ve had over the years.”
STICKLER FOR FITNESS
Tietjens the coach came as quite the surprise to Crossman.
“As a player, he was a talented player, but as a coach, I’ve watched with interest,” Crossman says.
“When he came to coach the Bay of Plenty and struggled at a particular time to stick wins on the board, I knew from observing him then he probably realised the difficulty coaches had with him when he was playing.”
“His attitude from his playing days to where he is now? It’s galactic.”
Coaching wasn’t something Tietjens had considered as a player. It just happened. He started coaching the 15-man game after finishing his playing career, but got his shot at sevens coaching in the early 1990s.
“Ironically really, I coached the Bay of Plenty side to win the Melrose Sevens in about 1992, and that’s where sevens was born,” Tietjens said.
It’s also where his coaching career was born.
Two years later, in 1994, Tietjens was handed the reins of the New Zealand Sevens team, and instantly looked to stamp his mark on the squad.
It’s a day Rush will never forget.
“I actually watched him play against the Springboks in 1981,” Rush says. “I was on the sideline that day, so I knew who he was.”
“Obviously I hadn’t been under him as a coach or anything. It was one of his earlier coaching jobs, and I’d heard he was a bit of a stickler for fitness. We found out how much after that first training.”
“Basically he had us all walking. He pretty much broke everybody that first day.”
“We were getting ready for training the next day and it was like getting ready for a game.”
“Everyone was switched on and stretching up and getting rub downs because he absolutely caned us that first day.”
The precedent had been set, and the players knew what to expect from Tietjens’ training sessions from then on.
A couple of weeks later the team won the Hong Kong Sevens for the first time in five years, with the fittest squad in the game and a bright new coach on the sidelines.
Rush said the trainings were so intense there came a point where the players were doing harm to their own bodies.
That’s when the mental training kicked in.
“You’re pushing your body that hard that is becomes counter-productive, but that’s when the mental conditioning part of it takes over.”
“That’s been the secret to his teams. It’s not rocket science. If you’ve been pushed mentally every day at training, when it comes to that time in the game, and it will happen when you’re playing sevens, you’re pretty tough upstairs because you’ve been there most days at training.”
Current New Zealand captain DJ Forbes remembers his first season under Tietjens, and said he dropped about 10 kilograms during the year.
“It was pretty massive in terms of the shock to the system,” Forbes says of that first training session.
“I remember my first year I shedded down to about 92kgs. I’m normally over a hundred comfortably.”
“That first year was pretty much ‘yes sir, no sir’. It was just a matter of, whatever we were told to do, we’d do it.”
“Titch’s set-up definitely tests your character.”
Both Rush and Forbes have a special relationship with Tietjens, acting as on field coaches for the New Zealand team.
Forbes said it’s something he wouldn’t have imagined in his debut season.
“I remember when I was first in the team, it was like the whole elevator scenario, when you’re in the elevator you don’t want to talk, you just look at the wall and wait ’til you can get out.”
“Now we’ve come a long way and there’s a lot of discussion.”
“At the end of the day he still calls the shots, but I guess I’m the so called captain of the ship, steering it in the right direction while he’s on the sideline.”
ONE OF THE ALL-TIME GREATS
Two things in particular keep Tietjens going after 20 years in charge of the New Zealand Sevens team.
One is his drive to win gold at the Rio Olympics.
Then there is seeing his former charges pulling on another black jersey and becoming All Blacks.
More than 40 former sevens players have gone on to play for the All Blacks in Tietjens’ time, and it’s something he enjoys just as much as those World Series titles.
“I’m working with lots of young players and I like seeing young players working their way through the system to become Super Rugby players and to be All Blacks,” Tietjens explains.
“I think there’s been about 41 or 42 players who have gone through the All Black Sevens to become All Blacks, and it’s pleasing for me when that happens.”
“Any player that goes from my side and deserves selection in a Super Rugby team, or the All Blacks, to me that’s perhaps more pleasing than winning a tournament.”
Then there’s the Olympic factor.
Tietjens is signed on with New Zealand Rugby until after the Rio Olympics, and is desperate to win an Olympic gold.
His team is always developing and getting better, keeping New Zealand one step ahead of the competition, and former Australian coach Michael O’Connor doesn’t see that changing.
“Did I get the best of him? I don’t think so,” O’Connor says. “I only had a couple of wins against New Zealand in six years.”
“The thing about New Zealand is, [Australia have] been able to consistently beat the other nations pretty regularly, be it South Africa or England or Fiji, Samoa, all the top nations. But we really struggled to beat New Zealand.”
“Regardless of how we play tactically, how well we play, they’ve always had the edge on us.”
“I’d say that’s down to Titch. He’s meticulous with his preparation, doesn’t leave a stone unturned, and he’s just highly competitive. He hates losing.”
“You see him after losses, and he really takes it personally. To have the passion and competitive juices he has, it’s quite extraordinary.”
O’Connor said every team in the IRB Sevens World Series follows the lead of New Zealand, and every coach looks to what Tietjens is doing to try and improve their team.
Tietjens is also happy to talk to opposing coaches about what he does in the New Zealand set-up.
That open attitude, and his lasting success, makes Tietjens one of the best coaches of all time, in any sport, according to O’Connor.
“A lot of people don’t really understand how tough sevens tournaments are,” O’Connor says.
“What he’s been able to achieve, it’s up there with what Sir Alex Ferguson did at Manchester United, or some of the great coaches in the world.”
“He’s won something like 50 tournaments, and that’s incredible, and these tournaments aren’t easy.”
“There’s 16 teams. You’ve got the draw, the referees, all sorts of variables in each tournament, and they have never played in a bowl competition. That’s just amazing.”
When you have a winning formula, all you need to do is evolve with the times.
Tietjens does that while keeping his old school training methods intact.
“He never changes, eh,” Forbes says.
“He’s got a couple of resource coaches who come in to help out and I think they’re really there to try and put a bit of a leash on him, because he likes to really get into the thick of stuff.”
“He’s a hard nosed, old school trainer, likes to have a whistle and the boys out on the field running from line to line.”
“In terms of work ethic and discipline and fitness I think he sets the standard, and I think that’s what’s got us through a lot of tournaments.”
Tietjens shows no signs of slowing down, and although his contract with New Zealand rugby ends after the Rio Olympics, don’t be surprised if he’s back for more.
“I think when I stop enjoying it then it’s time to move on,” Tietjens says, “but I enjoy it so much now I take it one year at a time.”
In reality, he takes it one tournament at a time, and there will be plenty of tournaments to come for Gordon Tietjens.