England Sevens Make It Two From Two

England Sevens lifted a second successive European title on Sunday after sailing to a 31-7 win over France in the Bucharest GP Sevens final.

Having already won the Lyon GP title earlier this summer, the win in Romania secured England the FIRA/AER European series crown in the final warm-up act before the World Series commences in Australia next month.

Influential playmaker Dan Bibby scored two early tries in the final to give the men in white a commanding 14-0 lead over France at the half.

As the second half began, Christian Lewis-Pratt hacked through for a third and former Cornish Pirates flanker and Lougborough Student, Phil Burgess squeezed into the corner for a fourth to make the score 26-0.

France did respond through a try by Julien Candelon; however, leading try scorer Dan Norton broke through for England and dived over the line for England’s fifth and the victory.

On the opening day of the competition England completed a clean sweep of pool game wins, beating HSBC Sevens World Series rivals Wales 40-7 and Portugal 26-14, as well as defeating Italy 19-0 and hosts Romania 14-7.

In England’s first game of the competition against Italy, former England Under 20 captain Alex Gray, wing Ollie Marchon and fly half Christian Lewis-Pratt all touched down in the 19-0 victory.

In the second game of the pool England stepped up a gear against 2013 Hong Kong finalists Wales, as they ran in an impressive six tries, with Dan Norton scoring a brace and Tom Mitchell, Tom Powell, Mike Ellery and Phil Burgess also scoring.

The toughest test of the first day came in the form of host nation Romania; after Andrei Bucurescu cancelled out John Brake’s early score before Captain Powell settled things in the final minute of the game.

England did trail against Portugal in the fourth game of the day, after Pedro Avila scored an early try. However, England hit back with a brace of tries by flanker Phil Burgess and then further scores from Marcus Watson and Mitchell to seal the game.

On the second day of the tournament England began with a final pool match against Georgia; having already qualified for the knock-out stages.

England won the match 17-7, with tries from Bibby, Lewis-Pratt and Michael Ellery.

Russia provided the hardest game of the weekend in the semi-final. England were held 14-14 at the break, after tries from Burgess and Norton in the first half.

England were pegged back twice by two Denis Simplikevic efforts until Ellery and Bibby made sure.