Gordon Tietjens

Sir Gordon Frederick Tietjens /ˈ t ɪ tʃ ə n z / KNZM (born 9 December 1955) is head coach of the Samoa rugby sevens team, and a celebrated former coach of the New Zealand men's national team in rugby sevens, the All Blacks Sevens. When the International Rugby Board inducted him into the IRB Hall of Fame in May 2012, it said that "Tietjens' roll of honour is without peer in Sevens, and perhaps in the Game of Rugby as a whole." According to Spiro Zavos, Tietjens is "The greatest of all the Sevens coaches".

In the 1999 New Year Honours, Tietjens was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, in the 2007 New Year Honours, he was elevated to Companion of the same order, and in the 2013 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was further promoted to a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

As of his induction, he had coached the All Blacks Sevens to 10 series titles in the IRB Sevens World Series, the Rugby World Cup Sevens crown in 2001, and gold medals in four of the five Commonwealth Games in which the sport had been contested, losing the 2014 final in Glasgow. He has also added two more IRB Sevens series titles (2013 and 2014), and a second Rugby World Cup Sevens crown (also in 2013).

In 2012, his contract as the NZ Sevens coach was extended through to 2016. This allows Tietjens to be part of Sevens rugby's first inclusion in the Olympic Games. According to then-World Rugby chairman Bernard Lapasset, sevens' inclusion in the Olympics was "in no small way down to Gordon Tietjens. Through his knowledge, passion, and expertise, he has driven the standards towards what we now celebrate as a truly global game of sevens."

After an unsuccessful 2016 Olympics campaign, Tietjens stepped down from the All Blacks coaching position.

In October 2016, Tietjens accepted the role of coach to the Samoa national sevens team.