Sports Letters: RFU proud of sevens success

Sir: It is one of life's little ironies that an England sporting success, and these are rare enough, should provoke carping comment from mischievous journalists about the way in which the game is run (20 April). Perhaps we are better able to handle defeat.

The Rugby Football Union is inordinately proud of its 10-player squad which against all the odds, including a somewhat hostile environment, won this inaugural World Cup Sevens in style at Murrayfield on Sunday.

The earlier decisions not to pick players from the overloaded England team, not to ask amateur players in full-time employment to take yet another week off to play in the Hong Kong Sevens, but to select a team of highly promising players expert at the sevens game were entirely vindicated. There is no possibility of preserving rugby union as an amateur sport unless the ever-increasing demands on players' time are contained.

Far from being 'prostrate with contrition', which is of course my normal position, this Secretary is 'over the moon'.

Yours sincerely,

D E WOOD

Secretary

Rugby Football Union

Twickenham

20 April