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DUBAI, UAE, November 14, 2011 – Defending champions England may be without their Sevens stalwart Ben Gollings this year, but the team is as confident as ever of putting in a good performance at the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens next month.

Gollings remains top of the list of all-time points scorers in the HSBC Sevens World Series, but England coach Ben Ryan believes it’s time to look forward following Gollings’ retirement at the end of last season.

“Ben, as everybody knows, had a fantastic record in the Sevens game and has done fantastically well for Sevens as a whole. No one is ever irreplaceable, though, and whoever is in the programme, there will always be the 'next-ups' and we've got lots who are eager to put their hands up for that playmaker role,” said Ryan. “Ben gave great service to England but we're now on to the next chapter in our story.”

Ryan has named a side that includes eight of the players that took the title in Dubai last year where they beat Samoa in the final. “You're going to see a lot of familiar faces. We've got a lot of lads in their early 20s and a lot of winners in Dubai from last year who will be running around again, so you can expect 75-85 per cent of them taking the field with one or two very exciting additions to the team,” he explained.

With the Dubai tournament second in the Series this season, Ryan is expecting a tough challenge, having to overcome significant jetlag, but believes Dubai is the ideal place for that recovery process.

“From a European perspective we'll have travelled all the way round the world to play on the Gold Coast and then half-way round the world to Dubai, which is one of our homes-from-home. What will help after all the travel and the jet-lag is that we're coming to a place that will give us a natural adrenaline boost,” he said.

“The crowd in Dubai is always fantastic. We always get that at the beginning of the season. Maybe it'll be even more of a boost to us now with fatigue in our legs.”

Following their massively popular victory in Dubai last year the England team went on to finish third overall in the Series, behind New Zealand and South Africa.

“I'm confident we will be better than we were last season,” said Ryan. “That doesn't necessarily mean we'll do better because of the opposition and the way they'll improve too. But we know our programme is on an upward curve. We're 12 months into the full-time programme and we've adjusted a lot of what we're going to do on the field, so I think there will be some surprises for the opposition. We're very confident but we're also aware that there are some outstanding teams that we'll do well to compete with.

“We're happy to say that one of our goals has to be getting to No.1 in the world and winning our first HSBC Sevens World Series title over the next performance cycle, but we're acutely aware that we'll have to play and beat some outstandingly good sides to do that.”

As for the prospect of returning to the site of last year’s triumph, Ryan added: “It's an iconic setting in the middle of the desert and the England support is outstanding. That tiered stadium is unique. It looks like there's even more people there when you're in the middle of the field. It's also a place where England have had some great success over the years. We love coming to Dubai. It's a perfect place to play Sevens.”

Tickets to see the England team in action at the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens are on sale from www.dubairugby7s.com and at selected Costa and MMI outlets, Virgin Megastores, selected Eppco stations, dnata, Emirates headquarters and at 7he Sevens stadium.

A free bus service will be available to transport fans from the stadium back to several convenient locations across Dubai including: Dubai Media City, Crowne Plaza Dubai Festival City (family drop-off points), Barasti, Chi @ The Lodge, Irish Village and Nezesaussi (Old Town).

For more information on the tournament, log on to www.dubairugby7s.com

The England squad is: Greg Barden, John Brake, Chris Brightwell, Chris Cracknell, Isoa Damudamu, Dan Norton, Tom Powell, James Rodwell, Nick Royle, Mathew Turner, Rob Vickerman, Marcus Watson