Dubai: Ben Ryan is England's longest-serving sevens team head coach thanks to his three-and-a-half years in the job, but the holy grail achievement of winning the IRB HSBC World Sevens Series title still eludes him.
The 40-year-old was appointed Mike Friday's successor in January 2007 and has since taken his home nation to dozens of World Series tournaments, winning events in Wellington, London and Dubai.
A concerted challenge for the overall title, however, is yet to materialise as New Zealand — the reigning champions — continue to dominate. The All Blacks have won nine of the 12 titles so far, with Fiji, Samoa and South Africa the only teams to have broken their monopoly.
The England coach is realistic about his team's chances in the 2011/12 season, as he told Gulf News when he was in Dubai for the latest leg of the World Series:
GULF NEWS: The England team have had a lot of success at the Dubai Sevens. What is it about the event here that brings the best out of your team?
BEN RYAN: There is a great expatriate community so there's a lot of support for England here. I love the way the stadium is set out and the conditions are normally near perfect. I think we had one with blustery showers about six years ago but apart from that it's been fantastic. And it's good timing for us normally when we come here as with the jet lag it's normally pretty comfortable for us.
Coming to Dubai is a fillip for the lads — they love playing here and running out with the crowd behind them.
England won here in Dubai last year but could only finish third overall. How would you rate your team's progress since then?
We have come together pretty well, I'm pleased with how we're doing. It's only week two and players always have slightly different levels of fitness at this stage.
We GPS people and across the board teams' performances are normally slightly lower in week two. But with five subs and three tournaments in a row, we have brought in a couple of new players and I think we can negate that.
From our training we were far better than normal going into a second tournament.
England have had success in individual tournaments in the past, but not the series as a whole. What are your chances of putting that right this year?
This series is our focus and we want to win. We've got a lot of work to do to catch up, even in the short term.
But with Fiji and New Zealand playing well and South Africa with their full-time squad and Australia now investing resources into it, there's suddenly a whole host of teams that can probably win the world title this year. That's great for the sport.
Are there any particular areas of your team you have been working to improve?
We're based around good communication and good decision-making, so all our practice is based around that.
We will win tournaments this year, I'm sure we will, but it's frightening seeing Fiji at full volume.
When they hit their straps they are a very hard side to defend against and they also defend with real gusto and put pressure on people.
And then you've got New Zealand, who will always be there, and South Africa and I also think you'll find a surprise act this year — someone like Portugal could spring a surprise.
This is your first year without Ben Gollings — the sevens series all-time leading points scorer. How much of a loss is he?
He's been a great player for us, but as every chapter ends another begins and we've got a 20-year-old [Marcus Watson] who will probably fill his boots and he will share the work with another 20-year-old [Christian Lewis-Pratt] — that's not a decision based on age, but the fact we have a lot of talented youngsters.
We won the junior Commonwealth Games at a canter in the summer and a lot of those players will be made available in the next 18 months.
We've got a lot of players to pick from in the playmaker position and the long-term future is pretty rosy.
