Dubai: England try scorer Ruaridh McConnochie said he couldn’t fault in the effort of his teammates as they went down 14-5 to New Zealand in the cup semi-final of the season-opening Dubai Rugby Sevens on Saturday.

McConnochie had England 5-0 up at half-time before record 12-time World Series and six-time Dubai winners New Zealand came back through two tries from Joe Ravouvou, which were both converted by Andrew Knewstubb.

“You couldn’t fault the effort from our boys,” said McConnochie of the crowd favourites, who are four-time champions in Dubai.

England — whose players were all sporting shaven heads to raise money for a cancer charity — won here twice back-to-back in 2004, 2005 and 2010, 2011, and have also been losing finalists here twice in 2008 and 2015 to total six final appearances in 13 years.

“We were on our knees at the end and rightly so, we worked our socks off for each other and that’s what we really pride ourselves on, making that tackle and keeping on going again right to the final whistle.

“I thought we epitomised that and it was great with the English fans here, they really helped us through that game, and we’re sorry we couldn’t get the win.”

England captain Tom Mitchell added: “It’s tough to take and horrible to lose but they seized their chances better than we did. We got stuck by our own line early in the second half and that killed us.”

England had topped their group with wins over Spain 28-0, France 14-12 and Scotland 29-0 on Friday, before beating Australia 26-19 in the cup quarter-final.

In the other semi-final, Olympic champions Fiji crashed out 12-7 to Dubai and World Series holders South Africa, in a repeat of last year’s final.

Cecil Afrika and Seabelo Senatla got tries with the second converted by Afrika to put South Africa 12-0 up at half-time.

Fiji then came back in the second half with a Jerry Tuwai try converted by Amenoni Nasilasila, but it was too late.

Fiji had topped their group with wins over Russia 50-7, Wales 21-7 and Australia 26-19, before beating Scotland 35-24 in the quarters to get this far.

Having won the past two consecutive World Series titles before South Africa last year, and having won two Dubai titles in the past four years, Fiji were a major name to fall. In total, they have made nine finals here.