With Rio 2016 Olympic Games qualification at stake for the top four teams at the end of the series next May, the squad saw off competition from South Africa, France and Spain to take wins of 36-0, 24-10 and 39-0 respectively at the Sevens Stadium in the United Arab Emirates city.

Last season's Series winners New Zealand follow just behind in second after their 43-0 victory over China, a 24-19 win in the match with the United States and their 29-12 triumph against Russia.

The defending champions could, however, have to go on without captain Sarah Goss tomorrow after she left the field in the first half of the Russia match with a finger injury.

"We started well but we had a wake-up call against USA, they really threw everything at us," New Zealand coach Sean Horan said.

"We've shown that we've got some depth, but you have to put things into perspective; we only had two girls on the field from the Rugby World Cup Sevens 18 months ago, so yeah, we have some work to do."

England secured a 17-12 win over Canada in a re-run of this year's Women's Rugby World Cup final, as well as a 26-0 victory over Fiji and a 29-7 victory over Brazil to claim third place in the standings so far.

"We couldn't hope for more," England captain Abi Chamberlain said.

"The target was three from three and we nailed it.

"Canada was our biggest challenge today and we are glad to win this one."

America's Victoria Folayan was the top scorer of the opening day of the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series in Dubai with 35 points, coming from seven tries
©Martin Seras Lima/World Rugby


The US are fourth, thanks largely to an outstanding effort by Victoria Folayan, who was the day's top scorer with 35 points, coming from seven tries.

They also overcame Russia 17-12 and China 61-0.

Elsewhere, Canada secured a 26-10 win over Brazil and defeated Fiji 47-5, while Russia overcame China 47-5 and France claimed a 31-0 victory over Spain.

The action continues tomorrow with Australia taking on Fiji, New Zealand playing Russia, England facing France and the US battling Canada in the quarterfinals, while the bowl semi-finals will see South Africa facing China and Spain taking on Brazil.

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