Story highlights
England wins Vancouver Sevens
Beats South Africa 19-7 in the final
Blitzboks still hold overall series lead
As weekends go, it was a pretty good one for English rugby.
A record-equaling 18th consecutive win for the test side, a 64-0 hammering of Scotland for the women’s team, and to cap it all off, victory at the Rugby Sevens World Series event in Vancouver, Canada.
England’s 19-7 defeat of South Africa in Sunday’s final means Simon Amor’s side is still the only team to overcome the Blitzboks this season, having also beaten the men in green in the Cape Town title match.
“We’ve played well at times this season and haven’t come away with wins so it’s nice to get reward for our efforts,” said England’s speedster Dan Norton, who now shares first place on the all-time world series try list after going over the white line in Vancouver for the 244th time of his career.
Vancouver hosts its second Rugby Sevens World Series tournament
“We’ve still got a way to go on the series so we will cherish this moment but know we have to keep pushing for (the next tournament in) Hong Kong,” Norton added.
“We fought hard over the week and it wasn’t the prettiest at times but we knew if we scrapped for everything over the two days we could be in with a chance.”
The victory means England climbs to second in the overall standings on 103 points, though South Africa still holds a commanding 23-point lead in the series.
READ: Canada ‘has a point to prove’ in Vancouver after funding cut
READ: Blitzboks win in party capital Vegas
READ: Rugby’s concussion problem – the headache that ends careers
England trailed the Blitzboks for most of the first half, and it required a Richard de Carpentier try on the stroke of halftime to draw the game level. Two second-half scores from Dan Bibby and Norton clinched victory and denied South Africa a fourth-straight tournament win.
On paper, England’s path to the final was a tricky one. A gritty 14-12 win over New Zealand in the quarterfinals was followed by a record 40-7 victory against Olympic champion Fiji – arguably the crowning performance of the weekend – as Norton crossed for two of England’s six tries.
Fiji went on to finish third in the tournament, overcoming the USA 28-24 in a tense encounter.
Wales defeated Samoa 19-12 to lift the Challenge Trophy, while there was also an historic result for non-core series member Chile, which recorded its first top-level victory since 2010 by defeating Russia 10-0.
Visit cnn.com/rugby for more news and videos
With four tournaments to go, the world series resumes in Hong Kong on April 7.
