New Zealand have had an incredible start to the 2018 series. A final in Dubai and their first tournament win since April 2016 at the Cape Town Sevens back in December. They currently sit top of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series table and are looking in top form.

It hasn’t all been plain sailing for the current series leaders. A particularly tough 2016-17 series saw them finish down the table. With plenty of new players coming in and some old players calling time on their career, the side went through a bit of a transitional period.

“Yes, it was a tough year. We didn’t have our head coach, Scott Waldrom stepped in as interim and did a really great job. We had a lot of new players involved and a few guys finishing their career as well. It was a bit of a funny one and I suppose it was used as a bit of a rebuilding year,” admitted Curry.

That all seemed to change in Dubai. The All Blacks Sevens came out and played some really exciting and physical rugby. It looked like a completely different team and one that seemed to be really enjoying how they were playing.

Speaking on that event, the New Zealand captain had this to say.

“We just wanted to do the best we could. We had a really good pre-season coming up to Dubai. We focused a lot on our team culture and got that up and running. We worked hugely on our rugby but there was still plenty we could improve on but going into that tournament we were pretty happy where we were at and we were happy to get to the final, but we knew we had to try and go one better in Cape Town.”

In rugby sevens you don’t have to wait too long to get another crack at redemption. New Zealand dusted themselves off and did just that a week later in Cape Town. Taking out favourites South Africa in the semi-final and kicking on in the final to beat Argentina convincingly.

“We flushed the Dubai tournament out of our minds, but we took a lot of learnings from our game against South Africa, they beat us fairly comfortably and a few things didn’t go our way but to bounce back and beat them in Cape Town was pretty special,” added Curry.

“We were pretty happy to make a final in Dubai but then to go one better the week after and improve our game, that had us stoked. Me and Timmy talked and we said if we had been given a final and a win before we left we would have been pretty happy with that.”

New Zealand will no doubt be looking to turn up the heat in Sydney this weekend and making sure they put their best foot forward in what will be a huge year for rugby sevens.

Click here to see who New Zealand and the 15 other men's teams will face in their pools at the Sydney Sevens this weekend.