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England coach Ben Ryan is hoping consistency of selection will prove crucial when the HSBC Sevens World Series kicks off on Friday at the Dubai Sevens (3-4 Dec).

Compared to many of their leading rivals England will be using a similar squad to last season with eleven of the squad also seen at Delhi’s Commonwealth Games in October – where they finished in fourth place.

“We’ve got the core remaining so the guys you can build a team around – Ben Gollings, Isoa Damudamu, Dan Caprice are there and the biggest thing for us is that we’ve managed to keep the side that finished the last series in Edinburgh intact,” said Ryan.

“This squad will go through the World Series together. There’s only one out of the 12 who are going to Dubai this year who haven’t been there before in Tom Powell, while Ollie Lindsay-Hague played in the invitation tournament. We’ve got consistency there and that’s one of the key ingredients in international sport to doing well,” added the coach.

England enjoy the partisan atmosphere in Dubai with the large expatriate community lending plenty of support to the team. Last year saw them lose out to a powerful Samoan unit in the semi-final, with the islanders going on to eventually lift an inaugural World Series title. 

“The preparation is probably better than we have had for a long time. We’ve got eight full-time contracte players now who we can see on a weekly basis. That means we’ve had a lot of contact time in the last three to four months. I’m sure the other teams will have had similar experiences but we’re in a good place,” he said.

England have been drawn in the same pool as former world champions Fiji, Portugal and France and will play their first match at 9.42am against France on December 3.

Asked how confident they are going into the Dubai tournament, Ryan said: “There’s always the unknown. There are teams I have no idea about and that happens every year in Sevens. Argentina, America, Fiji – I haven’t seen play and they’re always dark horses who will spring one or two surprises. You can add Russia into that bracket too.

“The main teams, Australia, New Zealand and Samoa, will have had a lot of changes recently so it’ll be interesting to see what they’re about. With the coaches that they have, they will want to hit the ground running. The quality’s gone up across the board but I believe we’ll definitely improve on last year and improve on our fifth place in the Series.”

Ryan is relishing the prospect of returning to Dubai for the start of the eight-leg HSBC Sevens World Series.

“There are two reasons why Dubai is so special. First, it’s the start of the series and everyone goes in there with high spirits and the promise that anything can happen. Anyone who starts well in Dubai is generally in the mix for the World Series title.

"There’s a pretty high correlation between being a finalist in Dubai and winning the World Series. That was backed up this year with Samoa and New Zealand last year, who finished No.1 and No.2 in the Series.
 

“The second thing is that for England the support is perhaps more vocal than anywhere else in the world and we love that – it’s great – particularly later in the day when the atmosphere really builds and builds. It’s great to have 40,000 people there and it feels like they’re all behind England,” added Ryan.