The worst ever draw?

Imagine that you have entered a sevens tournament. Its a special event with lots of international teams - and its being played out in Dubai - but still most teams are normally club standard. Should be fun.

And the draw comes through and you find that you are playing someone called the Sporting Chance Foundation. Never heard of them - a bunch of charity workers maybe, odd ringer perhaps, but sounds good. Bring it on!

Well, that is the situation for Aylesford Bulls, from Hampshire [or maybe Kent. Apparently] who entered the Dubai Exiles Sevens, to be played at the end of this month. However, since the weekend they may have reassessed their view of their first opponents. Because there is more than one ringer in the team...

A press release from RFUW reveals that the team is, in fact, England. That is the full England sevens team - favourites for the Sevens World Cup next spring - who are using the tournament as a first warm-up. And England are not the only international team. Both USA and Canada - and possibly one or two more besides - have entered in varying degrees of disguise, which goes some way to explain why England are flying out to Dubai to face Aylesford Bulls rather than going 50 minutes down the M2. Anyone care to guess the score for the game?

After this England will be off to San Diego for a sevens there. Then it'll be back in fifteens mode for the Six Nations, preceeded by a warm-up game with Ireland in December. 

England will be going for their fourth consecutive Six Nations Grand Slam, and despite RFUW's attempts to make it seem slightly exciting it has to be said that England are now SO far ahead of the rest of Europe that an England 2nd XV would still be favourites win the title and, indeed, the slam. The only question is how many tries they will conceed - if any. They certainly won't lose any games. It'll be interesting to see who comes second or third, whether France's decline has now reached free-fall, and whether its possible for Scotland to get any worse - but the actual championship winner is a foregone conclusion.