Ryan's England men in Middlesex debut
Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:59
An England team will compete in the Middlesex Sevens for the first time next month.
Head coach Ben Ryan's squad are building towards the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October, after finishing as silver medallists in Melbourne four years ago.
Ryan will be able to deploy stars from the IRB World Sevens Series, like global record points scorer Ben Gollings and match-winning all-rounder Isoa Damudamu, at Twickenham on August 14.
Wales and Scotland also take part in the tournament – alongside Premiership clubs, including defending champions London Irish, the British Army and some invitation sides.
"The Middlesex Sevens provides a great opportunity for us to get high quality game time in the run up to the Commonwealth Games and we're delighted to be taking part," said Ryan.
"It's a historic and high quality event that's full of top-end players and it'll be a good gauge of where we are and what finishing touches we need to put to our preparations.
"We'll be keeping a few things up our sleeves for Delhi but it'll be a great testing ground for us as well as for Wales and Scotland."
Ryan is due to confirm his training squad for the tournament later this month.
England will face Australia at the Commonwealth Games in the pool stages of the Rugby Sevens tournament which takes place on October 11 and 12.
The 2006 silver medallists have been placed in Pool D with the Wallabies, Namibia and Sri Lanka.
England were beaten 29-21 in the Melbourne final four years ago, when New Zealand claimed their third gold medal following their wins at Manchester (2002) and Kuala Lumpur (1998).
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