England skipper Greg Barden was left "bitterly disappointed" following his side's quarter-final exit at the Gold Coast Sevens.
England target title defence in Dubai
England skipper Greg Barden was left "bitterly disappointed" following his side's quarter-final exit at the Gold Coast Sevens.
England had gone into the opening leg of the HSBC Sevens World Series with serious title ambitions but they lost to Wales in the pool stages before crashing out to New Zealand in the last eight.
Things got worse for England as they then lost to Samoa in the semi-final of the Plate competition.
However former Royal Navy Marine Barden insists England will regroup and come back stronger for the second leg in Dubai - where the side are defending champions.
"The margins in this game are so small and a few things did go against us but you create your own luck and we've just got to keep taking small steps forward, which we certainly are doing," said Barden.
"It is hard. We hate losing, we're here to win and we're bitterly disappointed. But we've got a chance to put it right straight away next week and that's our aim now.
"We're going to Dubai which is one of our favourite competitions. There's huge support there for England and we're going to get on the plane, refocus and evaluate what we're doing, the things we didn't get right and also the things we did get right. There were a lot of them and these are early days in the season."
