Gollings guides England

England have qualified for the quarter-finals of the IRB New Zealand Sevens and will face Samoa tomorrow.

After trailing 12-7 at half-time against Australia, England improved in the second half to win 26-17 and maintain their unbeaten record.

Ben Gollings, the leading points scorer on the IRB circuit, scored two tries and coveted those of Nnambi Obi and Dan Hipkiss to eliminate the Australians.

Newcastle Falcons' Gollings was satisfied to make the Cup round.

He admitted: "If we'd lost that game we would have been in the Bowl.

"We can't be unhappy as we got what we wanted. We can still play better than that but it's coming.

"Australia came at us hard and got a few good tries, so half-time came at a good time. Luckily, we regrouped and got it together in the second half."

After conceding an early try to Obi, Australia struck back with a try by Luke Inman and created another score a minute later for Richard Brown.

England took the lead after the break with Gollings' first try after a strong run by Tony Roques.

Hipkiss arrived as a substitute for Obi and went over from a ruck close to the line and Gollings made it 21-12 with an excellent conversion from wide out.

A minute later England scored their best try of the day with four players handling to put Gollings in and seal the victory.

Replacement Jarrod Saffy scored a consolation try for Australia but the 2001 champions bow out after their earlier loss to Kenya.

The African team are the other team to qualify from Pool A and they will play defending champions New Zealand tomorrow.

The remaining quarter-finals are Fiji against Tonga and South Africa against France.

Defending champions New Zealand and joint leaders South Africa showed chinks in their armour today - South Africa losing to Tonga - though fourth-placed Fiji performed well in their pool.