I’ve been coming to Dubai since 2000 and this is my 13th trip here and I still haven’t been able to discover everything it has to offer.
To think that when I came for the first time it was all so different. Each visit is an opportunity to discover something new or check on its growth.
More than that, it is coming back to a tournament I love and undoubtedly one of the best of the season.
The crowds, the stands, the colour, the organisation, the rugby in every corner and that fact that we get to travel in business class all the way to Dubai make it a great week!
We arrived a few days ago and we are happy with the way we’ve adapted, but happier with the preparation we had before travelling. We worked very hard on the profile of player we are after and then focused on finding those players over a few months, searching beyond the high-performance system at home. We saw more than 100 players and once we chose those we wanted, we started working with them.
Preparation started in August and doing this so early was something we needed to do, giving us time to work out what we want from players and the team.
Big goals for 2018
It was three months together and we played two tournaments, one internationally in the Oktoberfest Sevens in Munich and the other in Rosario, because that competition environment is always important.
We are happy with the squad we have in Dubai with three newcomers to the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series. It is a mixed squad with five experienced players, five with only two tournaments and the three debutants are Marcos Moroni, Maximiliano Filizzola and Gastón Arias.
Our goal for the series is to finish at least seventh, which would require us to break the barrier of quarter-finals which last season, be it for play, tiredness or nervousness we did not cross. That is the big goal for the season.
The first tournament is always interesting as teams are all trying to show something new. Squads that have been together for some time always start stronger, such as South Africa with an average of 40 tournaments per player. That allows them to work differently and not needing to rehash their team every year.
Our ultimate goal is to develop players for Los Pumas so seeing some players that came through the sevens system playing in the November internationals was very gratifying for me as a coach.
A new, long and enjoyable season starts with RWC Sevens looming at the end of it as big goal. We are ready!