 England's Henry Paul lifts the USA Sevens trophy |
England won the USA Sevens in Los Angeles with a convincing 38-5 victory over Fiji in the final. Mike Friday's men got off to the perfect start with David Strettle and Andrew Vilk putting England 14-0 ahead.
Fiji did hit back through Timoci Volavola before Mathew Tait, Vilk and Nils Mordt sealed the win with tries after the break.
Kicker Ben Gollings, the leading IRB Sevens points scorer, completed victory with a try late on.
The win means England are closing in on leaders Fiji in the overall standings.
"It's a particularly pleasing win because first of all, we've done it without our captain (Simon Amor), then we lost Will Matthews early on to injury," said England coach Mike Friday.
"But most of all we worked long and hard on defending against Fiji."
England reached the final thanks to a blistering 38-0 triumph over South Africa in the semi-finals, Northampton's Vilk claiming a hat-trick.
South Africa were not helped by the sin-binning of Antonius Verhoeven just before the break.
Fiji left it late to win their semi-final against New Zealand, William Ryder scoring a sudden-death extra-time try for a 22-17 win.
England were pushed all the way by Argentina before beating them 19-15 in the quarter-finals.
Meanwhile Scotland won the Bowl final after beating Tonga 26-21.
They reached the final after beating Kenya 21-7 in the quarters and Samoa 26-21 in the last four.
The next IRB Sevens event takes place in Hong Kong starting on 31 March.