The New Zealand player who badly broke his nose at the Hamilton Sevens said he wanted to play on but the referee would not allow it.

Sam Dickson sustained the gruesome injury after copping an accidental knee to the face while cleaning out a ruck during New Zealand's quarterfinal win over Australia on Sunday.

"As soon as I cleaned that ruck I knew I did something," Dickson said. "I was on the ground and felt my nose and I realised she was pretty crooked. By the amount of blood coming out, I knew it was pretty bad.

"We scored a try quite soon after that and I went back at halfway and I tried to hide it. There was blood coming out but I tried to stop the bleeding. But then the ref saw it so he took me off.

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"To be honest it wasn't that painful. It's only a nose, it's not like it was stopping me from running. I thought I was OK to keep on playing."

GETTY IMAGES New Zealand player Sam Dickson copped two blows to the nose during the Hamilton Sevens.

Dickson said doctors "cracked" his nose back into place, and within two minutes he was back out on the field.

"Basically it's as simple as it sounds, they put their thumb on the side of your nose which is sticking the wrong way and they push as hard as they can until you hear of a lot of cracks and it's straight.

"I was back there for halftime and I told my coach, Clark Laidlaw, that I was good to go. Being a pretty hard Scotsman he understood. I went straight back on after halftime and I was into it."

Dickson, who actually suffered the same injury in Vancouver three years ago, said he took a further blow to his nose in the bronze medal match against South Africa, which New Zealand won 29-7.

Attempts to straighten his nose prior to the medal ceremony were unsuccessful.

"It wouldn't crack at all so she's still a bit crooked. You've got to wait about 10 days after your break it before you can have a good go at straightening it so I'll wait the 10 days before trying to get it straightened again."

Looking back on the two-day tournament, Dickson said New Zealand were left to rue an error-ridden semifinal against the United States.

They lost the match 17-7.

"We're obviously disappointed not to beat the US, especially at our home tournament. We were pretty confident going in but I think we had a slow start and made a couple of errors which didn't allow us to have the ball for a long period of time and build some pressure.

"The US like to slow the game down quite a bit, kick to the line and use their set-piece and then open it up for their speedsters but we just couldn't get in the game, we kept making errors which we didn't do on day one and we couldn't get the win in the end."

While he is still sporting a crooked nose and has bruising below his eyes, Dickson said he expected to be back on the field for this weekend's Sydney Sevens.

"I think if I take another knock on the weekend it obviously won't be very good, it'll probably just make me uglier, but I don't think it's very threatening to my health."