England crash out after costly yellow to Mitchell

A LATE try saw England beaten 19-12 by Fiji in their fifth-place semi-final at the Cape Town Sevens to finish joint eighth.

England were beaten 17-12 in the quarter-finals by New Zealand, who went on to lift the trophy by thumping Argentina 38-14.

England now sit fourth in the overall table, behind New Zealand, South Africa and Fiji.

Head coach Simon Amor said: “It’s disappointing to lose the last play in both games today but once again the effort has been tremendous from the players.

“We’ve just made too many errors and our decision making hasn’t been good enough at critical moments.”

Amor’s side trailed 12-0 at the break against Fiji but came back with a try from Tom Bowen while Dan Norton also scored in the corner – his fourth try of the tournament – as Tom Mitchell’s conversion levelled the score. However, a late Fiji score in added time sealed victory.

They had progressed through to the quarterfinals courtesy of pool victories over Uganda, Argentina and Scotland on day one.

They led 7-5 at the break through Ruaridh McConnochie’s try and Tom Mitchell's conversion.

McConnochie went over for a second try to give England a 12-5 lead but New Zealand came back immediately with a try.

Mitchell was yellow carded with a minute remaining and that gave New Zealand the overlap to go over in the corner and win it late on.

Looking ahead to the third leg of the Series in Sydney on January 26, Amor added: “We’ve got a couple of guys coming back from injury so that will help bolster the squad.

“We were certainly very rusty coming into these tournaments and you can see that in our performances, so the priority will be trying to work on reducing the number of errors we’ve made which has been high over the two weekends.

“Most importantly, it’s about maintaining that attitude to go out there and keep working hard for each other.”