Who is Ben Gollings: Ten things you should know about the Fiji Sevens head coach

Ben Gollings is one of the best players in sevens history.

The points-machine broke records during a superb career for England and has since coached international sides across the globe.

Ten things you should know about Ben Gollings

1. Ben Gollings was born on 13 May 1980 in Launceston, Cornwall. He attended Canford School and won the National School Sevens in 1997.

2. His XVs career began at Harlequins, before he moved to Newcastle Falcons and won the Anglo-Welsh cup in 2004.

3. Gollings relocated to Australia in 2004 and would play XVs there, as well as in Japan and New Zealand would follow. He also played for England in a non-cap match against the Barbarians in 2003.

4. He was the leading points scorer in the World Sevens Series during the 2005-06, 2008-09 and 2009-10 campaigns.

5. After his England contract was not renewed in 2011, he joined semi-professional Warwickshire club Rugby Lions as a player-coach, where he worked under England World Cup-winner Neil Back. In his only season there, the Lions won all 26 games and Gollings scored 17 tries and 112 points.

6. He represented England at three Commonwealth Games, with his best finish a silver medal at the Melbourne event in 2006.

7. Gollings won the iconic Hong Kong Sevens four times between 2002 and 2006.

8. He was the first player to pass 2,000 Sevens series points and his final tally (2,652) remained a record into the 2020s.

9. He continued to venture into coaching by joining the Sri Lanka sevens set-up in 2012, before moving on to Seattle to work at the Serevi Academy with Fiji icon Waisale Serevi.

10. Following coaching roles with China and Singapore’s sevens teams, Gollings was appointed Fiji head coach in December 2021.

The team won the first major tournament of his tenure, the Singapore Sevens, in April 2022.

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