England building for big climax to the Sevens season
BY Dan Norton’s own admission, this year’s World Series “hasn’t gone to plan” for England but he intends to put on a show for the fans at the Twickenham leg this weekend.
Last season’s series runners-up began auspiciously with a third place finish in Dubai – but the success masked fundamental problems around the contact area. Four consecutive fifth place semi-losses meant tweaks needed to be made, with the likes of Kenya and perennial frustrators New Zealand bullying them.
“We didn’t get the tactics right at the start of the year around the new breakdown laws and it impacted massively on our attack and defence”, Norton told The Rugby Paper.
“We haven’t changed the way we play, we’ve just evolved. Previously we’d be aggressive, get up early and push teams wide, whereas now it’s about identifying opportunity at the breakdown and if it’s not on, getting men on feet and building a wall to rob space from the opposition.
“We were doing a lot of un-needed running, whereas now we’re smarter in the way we position ourselves and how we work around the breakdown. It’s a clearer picture now.”
Sevens by its nature is a game of fine margins and Norton adds: “The games we’ve lost haven’t been drubbings. Sometimes it’s the bounce of the ball, sometimes it’s the ref, but these can be the difference between the games we’ve lost and the ones we were winning last year.”
The evolution has taken time to bed in, but the green shoots of optimism are beginning to sprout with a third place finish in Singapore backing up a Commonwealth Games bronze that saw them vanquish then series leaders South Africa in a thriller.
Lying eighth with just the Paris finale to follow London, the World Series is gone for England but with the World Cup in San Francisco to follow there is a shot at redemption.
“What do you gauge success of the season on?” Norton asks. “Is it the Series? Or that we’ve come away with a bronze in the Commonwealths and we’re in with a good chance at the World Cup again?”
First call is London and despite 372 matches and a record 287 tries, it is still special for Norton.
“It’s everything from the number of friends and family that come, to having the home changing room. It’s not just the rugby itself, it’s the festival, around the stadium that makes it such an experience.”