Dressed to dazzle, England took the first step towards fulfilling skipper Ben Gollings' wish when they defeated Samoa 29-21 to win the Emirates Airlines Dubai Sevens.
Having discarded their traditional white strip, England - in jazzy orange shirts and red shorts officially described as 'tequila sunrise' - came back from a 21-12 deficit to score three unanswered second-half tries through Simon Hunt, Dan Norton and Mat Turner to power their way to victory and win the opening leg of the HSBC Sevens World Series.
Gollings said on the eve of the tournament that 'it would be nice if we can win the World Series for the first time'.
With this victory, his side served notice they would be the team to beat in the eight-leg series this season, in which the Hong Kong Sevens in March will be the fifth leg. 'Maybe the worm has turned for England sevens,' said elated England coach Ben Ryan. 'Hopefully we can stir the England sevens beast to be a pretty powerful weapon.
'We dug ourselves out of a hole [in the final]. We could not escape the fact we really could have been in the Bowl competition and we got our chance,' Ryan said, referring to an earlier defeat to Portugal which almost saw them being relegated to the lower levels.
Two second-half tries from Oliver Lindsay-Hague - who also scored the first two tries in the final - helped England squeeze past New Zealand 19-14 in the semi-finals.