England finish fourth at Wellington Sevens

England finished fourth of the Wellington Sevens following a last-gasp 14-7 defeat to Fiji in the third-place play-off this morning.
On the back of two long days of competition, Simon Amor’s men, who saw flyers Dan Norton and Mike Ellery withdraw after day one through injury, conceded a try deep into injury time and remain fourth in the HSBC World Series standings.
James Rodwell thought he sent the game to extra-time with a try in the dying second but Semi Kunatani stole the goods late for Ben Ryan’s side.
England suffered their first defeat of the tournament in the semi-finals going down 31-0 to New Zealand who eventually lifted the Wellington trophy for the seventh time.
They were reduced to five men after Dan Bibby and captain Tom Mitchell were sent to the bin and New Zealand made them pay straight away with Sherwin Stowers going over in the corner.
Back with seven player, England leaked two more tries as Scott Curry and Ben Lam powered their way over from close range to lead 19-0 at the break.
The game was over by then with Bryce Heem and Akira Ioane completing the rout for the reigning World Series champions.
Earlier, England claimed a convincing 21-5 win over their nemesis Samoa in the quarter-finals.
In a mistake-riddled first half, they found themselves trailing 5-0 as Fale So’oialo pounced on a loose ball but they put things right in the second-half with Marcus Watson grabbing a brace either side of one from Phil Burgess and Mitchell converting all three tries.
England made it through day one undefeated including a 19-5 win over World Series leader South Africa to secure top spot.
Mitchell touched down twice either side of Rodwell’s 60th career try for England following impressive work from England’s forwards.
They opened their account with a fluent 36-7 win against Portugal with Norton’s two tries leading the way. Mitchell, Burgess, Jeff Williams and Tom Powell also touched down.
The 21-7 win against Wales was tighter with  Ellery’s early score cancelled out by Rhys Jones before Mitchell and Norton – with his 150th career try – struck to make sure of the win late in the second half.