How to attract the next generation

Ryan highlights the lack of progression “pathways” for the best talent in England despite the sport becoming popular in schools. “We have an incredibly vibrant sevens in schools but we haven’t got any pathways,” he said. “If you go to Rosslyn Park sevens, teachers will say that rugby sevens is taking a real hold now because of the Olympics and it is a really easy sport to start. But nothing is connected, sevens are not trying to get the best young players and get the pathways from schools.”

The England sevens academy that feeds into the universities system seems to be working, as it is producing the likes of Harry Glover, who was instrumental in England’s run to the final in San Francisco, winning breakthrough player of the tournament.

England captain Tom Mitchell, however, says that more youngsters need to be playing the short form of the game for England to push on.

“Other countries probably get more sevens experience before coming into the international side. Our programme has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years in terms of getting the academy in, and we already seeing the fruits of that with boys coming into the World Cup squad,” he said. “But we need to keep getting players playing the game – not just in our programme, but schools, universities, invitational sevens in the UK. People won’t necessarily stay in sevens – they might play XVS and choose their path, but the more minutes of sevens we can get players playing before they come into the international set-up, the better they will be.”