Having said a fond farewell to the old Exiles Rugby ground at the end of 2007, both rugby in Dubai and the Rugby World Cup Sevens now have a brand new home to be proud of.
The quaint old Exiles ground hosted 39 Dubai Sevens but has been superceded by 'The Sevens', a new sports complex built from scratch in just a year by Emirates to host all future events, and of course this World Cup, the first ever for both men and women.
As might be expected with such an ambitious plan, it has not been without its challenges.
Like the rest of the world, Dubai has now succumbed to the economic slowdown and much other building work has been halted or postponed but when the ambitious project first got underway it proved surprisingly difficult to get hold of the bare essentials: cement, steel and project managers.
In the end all three were sourced, the latter probably the most important and flown over to Dubai all the way from New Zealand.
The fixer
Grant McNair is a no-nonsense Kiwi. A carpenter by trade, he had already helped Emirates three times in the past and when Gary Chapman, President of Emirates Group and the man ultimately responsible for the complex, felt that things had slipped too far, he sent for the 'fixer'.
"There were a lot more issues than I thought there were going to be," said McNair.
"There was no water, sewerage, power - it was only in the last two days before the Dubai Sevens happened (in November) that we actually got the power on, and that had to be run from eight kilometres away and with four different road crossings to go across.
"We still didn't have designs from the Government, we didn't have entrance roads that we had to get designs for and all these things had to be pushed through the Government, not only just with the workers, so to get through all these things was quite major."
McNair is not exaggerating. In February 2008 all that existed was a plot of desert owned by Emirates and a loose plan. The entire infrastucture had to be sourced and built from scratch.
Phase two: Rugby World Cup Sevens countdown
In typical Dubai fashion, the venue was ready for the Sevens in November, a 50,000 sell-out, but as soon as the tournament was over the tools that had been downed for three days were once again picked up and phase two began - snagging and finishing off loose ends, not least the paving of the entire complex to cover up what had been the sand and dust of the desert.
"The 50,000 square metres of interlock that's had to be laid in a period of about five weeks has been quite an issue," admitted McNair. "But we've got it all down and it's looking quite good - it's looking like a project should.
"Every day I've wondered whether it was all going to be ready but you can't stress about it because there'd be too many things to stress about.
"You've just got to go with it and push as hard as you can. I'm quite blunt in the way I do things, but it works.
"It's come together at the end. It should have been earlier, but we are in Dubai!"
