England have struggled for flair in their November internationals so far.

But a concentration on basic skills in sevens could spell the way forward for the Test team, according to one World Cup-winning legend.

Lawrence Dallaglio is one of just two players to have tasted World Cup glory in both sevens and XVs, having won the inaugural Melrose Cup in 1993 and Webb Ellis trophy ten years later along with team-mate Matt Dawson.

Loose forward Dallaglio was No.8 and pack mates with now national team boss Martin Johnson when the lock hoisted the World Cup aloft after a thrilling 20-17 extra-time win over a shell-shocked Australia in Sydney.

The England team then, boasting the likes of Jason Robinson, Will Greenwood and Josh Lewsey, played with panache, flair and power.

Fast forward to the 2009 vintage and they appear to be a pale imitation of that side.

They struggled to create any chances in the 18-9 home defeat to Australia, and then almost made it two straight games without a try at Twickenham before Matt Banahan scored late on to give them an unconvincing 16-9 win over Argentina.

The lack of chances is a mystery with such a huge sevens influence on the squad.

Banahan, Tom Croft, James Haskell and Danny Care have all played a part recently without great effect.

But you’d back that sevens factor to produce results if you listened to Dallaglio even for a minute talking about his love of the game.

He said: “With training you have to get the balance, you can never be fit enough for sevens. The beauty is that it tests all your core skills to an extremely high level. At the various levels, it breaks them down - speed, pace, passing, agility, with tackling too and one-on-one, there is no hiding place, there is always space to take on a player.

“You get to express your skills in a way that perhaps you don’t in XVs, there is space to attack, where in Tests there will be six ready to pounce as soon as you get the ball.”

For Dallaglio certainly, the impact of sevens shaped his career in a huge way.

The 37-year-old was an integral part of the side that shocked New Zealand, Fiji and South Africa before beating the legend David Campese and his Australia team-mates in the final.

He said: “With me, remember I won the World Cup as a 20-year-old and when you think about that final day we had to play New Zealand, Australia and South Africa in the groups.

“Then we beat Waisale Serevi’s Fiji in the semis before beating Australia, with the likes of Campo, in the final. No one had given us a chance and I hadn’t even played for the Wasps first team by that stage!

“There may have been less of a culture of training in those days, but I can assure you that the experience gave me a serious winning mentality and it instilled in everyone that hunger to win.

“With a captain like Andrew Harriman leading us, and players like Tim Rodber in the squad too, we all gained a great sense of camaraderie and responsibility too.”

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