England retain Dubai Sevens crown

Defending champions England retained their Dubai sevens crown after beating France 29-12 to claim the second leg of the IRB World Sevens Series here on Saturday. Ben Ryan's side edged New Zealand (10-7) and Fiji (19-12) in the knock-out phases, and proved too powerful for a French team that had shocked South Africa in the quarter-final to set up a first last-four appearance since 2007.

Fiji-born Isoa Damu opened the scoring for England after a poor tackle by Paul Albaladejo opened up midfield and Dan Norton notched up a second shortly after, collecting his own chip and chase to go in under the posts.

But Renaud Delmas got one back for the French before Mat Turner scored a brace of five-pointers in quick succession to really put Les Bleus on the backfoot, facing a 24-7 deficit at half-time.

Delmas claimed his second try early in the second period to make for a tense finale, but England had the last word with a late Rob Vickerman try sealing a fourth Dubai title after previous wins in 2010, 2005 and 2004.

The weekend, however, was a disastrous one for New Zealand, nine-time winners of the Series over the last 12 seasons, knocked out in the quarter-finals by England and suffering three losses in a row for the first time in their history (against South Africa in pool play on Friday, England and then Australia in the plate semi-final).

"It's been a disappointing tournament for us," coach Gordon Tietjens admitted.

"There's still a lot of self-belief in the team, they'll be hurting," the veteran coach said, pinpointing composure, patience and physicality as three aspects his team will have to improve on in Port Elizabeth next weekend.

"But it's still early in the World Series, it's only the second tournament and we've just got to get back on the horse and give ourselves a good account of ourselves in South Africa next week.

"Option taking was pretty average at times, on-field decision-making was terrible, we got punished for that."

DUBAI, December 4, 2011 - AFP