Not all World Series legs feature both men and women but even those that are just one-gender, Ryan believes a truncated schedule needs to be put in place. "I like the idea of changing the format almost to a straight knockout where you start with 16 and go down pretty quickly," Ryan told Fairfax Media. "Coaches would hate it because you're going to get upsets and the pressure is on but that's good for supporters and this is a brand we've got to build a bit more. "They [World Rugby] need to look at the format and just sharpen it up a bit. "I don't think it works having the format that it currently is, which is every team playing six games and lower level teams. It's too much rugby. You could be a rugby nut but you're not going to sit here and watch 80 games of sevens over three days. "The HSBC World Series is getting more and more popularity but we need to shorten it all."

Asked whether some of the non-important matches – like a 13th place play-off for example – could be moved to a back field, Ryan replied: "You could do, or just get rid of them. I know there is some need for classification but you don't have to have those games. People want to watch the big games, the big knockouts. Finding a way to put pure knockout in the tournament is a good way to go." Ryan, who coached Fiji to an historic gold medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016, has coached properly for just 30 minutes since that day. He is a consultant to the French sevens team and manages to keep himself busy. He has written a book that will be released in Australia in May. The 46-year-old does, however, miss coaching but does not think he'll be head of a team come the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. "I'm not done with coaching," Ryan said. "I would like to go back into a sevens program at some point. XVs [coaching] didn't excite me enough and that probably told me that sevens is where I want to stay. The Olympics is pretty addictive.

"It's probably too soon [to coach at Tokyo]. It's qualification next season. I haven't seriously thought I'd be there in 2020." As for Australian women's coach Tim Walsh, who has announced he will leave his position after the Commonwealth Games in April, Ryan expects him to be snapped up quickly by other nations, if not his own. "He's an outstanding coach and I'm sure in the back of his mind he'll be going: 'right, well I've knocked off the women's gold medal, I'll try and get a men's'," Ryan said. "He'd be a very good men's coach on whatever team that is." Meanwhile, Ryan has defended his recent comments that have caused a stir in Fiji. He suggested the nation he guided to Olympic glory should not waste their money trying to bring a World Series leg to their country. Ryan wrote a lengthy Facebook post explaining why he thought the Fiji Rugby Union, which has very close ties to the government, should not spend $FJD1 million ($617,555) on overseas consultant fees when there are more important issues at hand.