England won the London Sevens thanks to a 31-26 sudden death extra-time victory over New Zealand at Twickenham. England had trailed 19-0 in the final but they pulled back to 26-26 with tries from Uche Oduoza, Micky Young, James Rodwell and Dan Norton. In a tense three minutes of extra-time, it was defences which were on top before Young scored the crucial try. The result means South Africa will have to wait until the final round of the series to pick up the overall title. The Springboks would have claimed their first International Rugby Board world series crown had England lost in the final.  | We can now go to Edinburgh for next weekend's final round with self-belief. England Sevens coach Ben Ryan |
England coach Ben Ryan said: "We never gave up believing in ourselves even though we were 19-0 down at half-time. "We knew we had a mountain to climb, New Zealand had their tails up and we hadn't been making progress. "In the second half we allowed ourselves to breathe a bit more in attack and tightened up our defence. Then we brought on Dan and that was that. "The problem for us in the first half is that we were not lying deep enough so we weren't running on to the ball at pace. "This was a fantastic final and winning London was special and especially so in front of a record crowd. | 606: DEBATE |
"I think this event is now building and there is no reason why it couldn't become as popular as the Middlesex Sevens used to be. I can see 50,000 plus coming to Twickenham for this day next year. "We can now go to Edinburgh for next weekend's final round with self-belief. It would be great to win at Murrayfield as we've never before achieved back-to-back wins." Ben Gollings' three conversions in the final took him to 2000 career points in the IRB Sevens World Series in which he is the all-time top scorer ahead of Fiji's Waisale Serevi. England had beaten Scotland 26-12 in the semi-final, after the Scots defeated Portugal 22-21 in the last eight. New Zealand, the two-time defending series champions, have not won a tournament this season.
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