England defeated HSBC Sevens Series leaders South Africa 21-14 to win the Tokyo Sevens at the weekend.
Warriors wing Josh Watkins was part of the 12-man squad that won the tournament in Japan to secure England’s first tournament victory since 2013.
The success moves Simon Amor’s side into the top four of this season’s series rankings.
Head Coach Amor praised his team’s efforts saying: “I’m incredibly proud of the guys. They have worked so hard these last few weeks.
“It wasn’t pretty rugby this weekend, from a lot of teams I think, but we carried on grafting and I am incredibly proud of them.
“We are trying to be better than we were last year and a key goal was to win a tournament and we have done that now.
“We haven’t quite hit the levels we wanted to in previous tournaments and we have had a lot of injuries this year but the way they fought and got that win is great. It gives us something to build on going forward.”
Tom Mitchell, England captain said: “It's a huge effort and we are so grateful to deliver this title.
“Our confidence is always something we are trying to build. I'm glad we stuck to our processes and really believed in what we could do.
“South Africa are an unbelievable team as they have shown all series and we were always going to have to fight to the end.”
England Sevens results at Tokyo Sevens:
England 33-0 Hong Kong W
England 10-7 Wales W
Fiji 33-19 England L
France 0-10 England W
Canada 5-14 England W
South Africa 14-21 England W