England won the IRB Sevens World Series London Sevens at Twickenham with a 31–26 victory over New Zealand in a thrilling final which went to sudden death extra-time.
England staged an impressive second-half comeback after trailing 19–0 at the interval to tries by New Zealand's Julian Savea (two) and Kurt Baker. The wing Uche Oduoza began the second-half recovery with a try which was all about speed and strength and was converted by Ben Gollings. Micky Young then dashed in for try number two.
A third try, from James Rodwell, and Gollings' conversion levelled the scores at 19–19. New Zealand went back ahead with a try from the experienced Zar Lawrence, which was converted by Tomasi Cama. The substitute Dan Norton came on to score for England, Gollings' conversion levelling the scores at 26–26.
In a tense three minutes of extra-time defences were on top before England made the crucial breakthrough with the winning try by Young, Newcastle's England Saxons scrum-half.
England's coach, Ben Ryan, said: "We never gave up believing in ourselves even though we were 19–0 down at half-time. We knew we had a mountain to climb, New Zealand had their tails up and we hadn't been making progress.
"In the second half we allowed ourselves to breathe a bit more in attack and tightened up our defence. Then we brought on Dan and that was that. The problem for us in the first half is that we were not lying deep enough so we weren't running on to the ball at pace.
"This was a fantastic final and winning London was special and especially so in front of a record crowd. I think this event is now building and there is no reason why it couldn't become as popular as the Middlesex Sevens used to be. I can see 50,000 plus coming to Twickenham for this day next year.
"We can now go to Edinburgh for next weekend's final round with self-belief. It would be great to win at Murrayfield as we've never before achieved back-to-back wins."
Gollings' three conversions in the final took him to 2,000 career points in the IRB Sevens World Series, in which he is the all-time top scorer ahead of Fiji's Waisale Serevi (1,310).
A record attendance for the Emirates Airline London Sevens of 63,500 watched the two days of action at Twickenham, including today's crowd of 36,313.
The other titles went to Fiji, who beat Portugal 24–10 in the Plate; Kenya, who beat the world champions, Wales, 12–7 in the Bowl; and Canada, who beat the USA 27–7 in the Shield.
