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New Zealand sevens coach Gordon Tietjens was already looking to the future as the world rugby sevens series drew to a close in Edinburgh on Monday (NZT).
The defending champions, New Zealand did not win a tournament in the series for the first time, but finished their season on a positive note by beating Australia 34-12 in the plate final.
Fiji won the tournament, downing newly crowned world series champion South Africa 20-19 in the final at Murrayfield.
South Africa had clinched their first series title the day before in winning their pool, and just came up short in capping the achievement with a fourth title in the eight-leg series.
The South Africans finished on 132 points, with Fiji second 30 points back. England took third overall with 98, 10 points ahead of fourth-placed New Zealand.
Tietjens upbeat
Tietjens was upbeat afterwards, saying the signs were looking good for next year's series.
"We've finished on a good note - that was positive, and probably out of these last two tournaments I've got three or four players that I've already put in the bank for next year, which is great," Tietjens said afterwards.
"Players like Tim Nanai-Williams, who can really produce."
New Zealand didn't start strongly in their plate final against Australia, as their trans-Tasman rivals twice took the lead in the first half.
But on both occasions, New Zealand hit back through tries to Willie Rickards and Nanai-Williams and trailed 10-12 at the break.
The second half was all about New Zealand, though, as Nanai-Williams notched his second and third tries either side of fine efforts by Julian Savea and Chad Tuoro.
Tietjens said his players would benefit from this season's world series experience, and come back stronger.
"It's about handling the pressure games when it really matters and we'll certainly know that next year - you can never take this experience away from them, which is great."
Tietjens said South Africa were worthy winners, and the standard of sevens play now was such that no one team could expect to dominate.
"There's four or five teams now that can win a world series. It probably just confirms how good we've been over the last few years to win eight of them, but it was not to be this year.
"(The tournament) is really competitive and it's going to get harder."
Tietjens' New Zealand team eased through the first day's play with wins over the United States 29-5 and France 22-5 before running up against South Africa in their third match.
Missed opportunities
A missed a conversion proved costly as South Africa prevailed 14-12.
Mzwandile Stick converted Kyle Brown's two tries and although New Zealand also scored twice through Kurt Baker and Paul Grant, they squandered a number of other opportunities.
Fiji then accounted for New Zealand 26-19 in the quarterfinals, turning around their 33-14 loss when the two teams met last week in the London sevens.
Pio Tuwai struck first for Fiji but Save Tokula pulled the game level and Tomasi Cama's conversion edged New Zealand ahead, only for the Fijians to mount a length-of-the-field assault with captain Vereniki Goneva scoring for a 10-7 halftime lead.
Tuwai scored again straight after the break and then Nasoni Roko put on a skills masterclass to create a superb fourth for Seremaia Burotu and a 26-7 lead.
Kurt Baker pulled one back for New Zealand and with a minute remaining Solomon King scored another but the comeback ran out of time.
The New Zealanders maintained concentration well to account for the always competitive Kenyans 26-21 in the plate semifinals.
