England will go into the IRB World Sevens Series tournament in Singapore (20/21 April) for the first time this year with pressure on them following their immpressive win at Hong Kong last month.
A repeat performance is possible in Singapore but England coach Joe Lydon knows that the lack of preparation time and the lack of contininuity in his squad will mitigate against such an outcome.
"Six of our squad played club games last Sunday. So there has been little time to prepare" said Lydon, who looks enviously at the advantages enjoyed by major rivals, New Zealand and South Africa.
"New Zealand have a squad of 20 full time contracted sevens players. So the coach will always have a squad fit and prepared for any tournament. Continuity is the key thing. That is difficult for us and I appreciate the problems of releasing players" stated Lydon.
"If you have the same team together then you can work on subtleties of the sevens game. And these are different from the fifteens game" continued the England coach, who essentially is operating with a different group of players from those who triumphed in Hong Kong.
The other problem, but not unique to England is the high temperatures and perhaps worse the high humidity in Singapore. "It's much more difficult for the players than in Hong Kong" suggested Lydon, who believes that the conditions will favour teams like Fiji and Samoa.
England will be the first to sample the conditions at the National Stadium in Singapore when they play Canada at 1130 (0430 BST) in the opening tie of the tournament on Saturday. The Canadians are reckoned to have a less strong side than that which defeated South Africa in Hong Kong, relying for the most part on young players.
"The first tie will be difficult for us but we will get better as the tournament progresses" said Lydon, confident that England can make defence work for them yet again. "We conceded only three tries in Beijing over the first three pool games. And in Hong Kong we had the least points scored against us".
Next up for England will be Taiwan, who took the place of China. That tie goes ahead at 1426 (0726 BST) and should represent an easy win for England. Potentially the hardest tie for England on Day 1 of the tournament will be the game against Argentina, one of the middle ranking powers in sevens rugby but a country with enough talent in the abbreviated game to produce shock results.
Singapore represents the eighth round of this eleven tournament World Series. Malaysia will follow next weekend and the final two rounds will take place at Twickenham on 24/25 May and at Cardiff a week later.
England currently lie fourth in the World Series standings on 78 points behind leaders New Zealand (118) second placed South Africa (92) and third placed Fiji (86). A win is worth 20 pts, runners-up 16 pts , semi-finalist 12 pts . The Plate win earns 8 pts, runners-up 6 pts semi-finalists 4 pts and the Bowl winner nets 2 pts.
