England went ahead 7-0 in the second minute when Fijian-born British Army solider Isoa Damu crossed, but New Zealand piled on the pressure, mainly through tight defence, to score five straight tries and clinch a comfortable win.

The tournament victory took New Zealand level with England on 64 points after three of eight rounds of the HSBC International Rugby Board (IRB) World Series.

The next round of the Series starts in Las Vegas next Saturday (February 12).

New Zealand was the dominant team at its home tournament, clearing its pool with ease and progessing comfortably through the knockout rounds, beating Wales 26-5 in the quarter-finals and Australia 17-0 in the semi-finals.

England, in contrast, was hard-pressed in almost all of its matches at the two-day, 16-team tournament.

It needed a last minute try to beat the unranked Cook Islands in pool play and laboured to a 14-7 win over Argentina in the quarter-finals and a 7-5 win over world champions Samoa in the semi-finals.

Samoa had earlier ousted defending Wellington Sevens champions Fiji 12-5 in the quarter-finals.

"He's outstanding," New Zealand coach Gordon Tietjens said of O'Donnell who was playing in his first World Series tournament and final.

"He had an outstanding tournament."

New Zealand lost captain D.J. Forbes to injury when it was still behind on the scoreobard but rallied in his absence to reclaim its home title.

"We lost D.J. early which could have been a major played but the guys went out and played for him," Tietjens said.

"We got up from that setback, picked the game up and didn't look back."


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