England's change in philosophy - of contracting players for sevens - has been partly responsible for their poor run at the Hong Kong Sevens in recent years, says former coach Mike Friday.
Friday, who was behind England's imperious reign from 2002-06, believes the present structure stymies growth and fails to attract up-and-coming talent, leading to a knock-on effect on England, who have failed to bloom under the tutelage of Friday's successor, Ben Ryan.
'When we won four in a row [2005 was a World Cup year, won by Fiji], the sevens squad was a player pathway and a lot of young guys went on to play for England,' Friday said. 'Now there are full-time professional sevens players and they have built a sevens-specific programme, but this rules out up-and-coming Premiership players.'
Friday, who will coach the Samurai International at the GFI HKFC Tens on March 21-22, pointed out that while England and South Africa (who have never won in Hong Kong) had adopted the contracted professional route, other sides like New Zealand and Wales still believed in the pathway route, and this approach seemed to be the best.
'I was always a believer in the pathway. I believe sevens is just like 15s, just with fewer people on the pitch. You still have one-on-one situations and you just try to beat your man. People talked about our success in the Sevens World Series and in Hong Kong, but more important for me was how many of our players went on to play for England in 15s,' Friday, 39, said.
'This was the philosophy I shared with the clubs, about a winning development, but not winning at the expense of development.