The post-Sir Gordon Tietjens era has begun in poor fashion for the New Zealand Sevens.
The All Blacks Sevens side - 12-time World Sevens Series champions - also lost their classifying final match 20-12 against Australia to finish the Dubai leg of the tournament in seventh place after two wins and three defeats.
Interim co-coach Tomasi Cama believes that a lack of preparation was a factor in the side's far from convincing start.
"We had a week to get together, that's not a lot of time an obviously the boys haven't been playing any sevens at all since the Olympics so we were behind from the get-go.
"We got taught a good lesson that if you come under-prepared at this level that's what you're going to get."
Cama, standing in as coach with Scott Waldrom before new man Clark Laidlaw arrives, is hopeful that his team will learn from this experience and be ready when the team heads to Cape Town next week.
"We'll certainly learn from this and look at not only our performance but how we can prepare better for the next tournament.
"We weren't smart enough at the start of the game, we had a plan to execute out there but things do change and you have to adapt.
"Other than that there are no excuses. South Africa are a good team and executed all their [plays] well, obviously we are very disappointed with that performance but we have to learn from that and move on."
Captain Scott Curry says with a lot of inexperience, his side will learn from this.
South Africa eventually took out the tournament, beating Fiji in the final 26-14.