EXCLUSIVE: Ben Ryan has finally addressed the England attack coach rumours

While he says he was ‘interested’ in the much vaunted vacant England attack coach role, specialist 7s coach Ben Ryan has said ultimately the position is ‘not big enough’ for him.

The former England 7s coach was speaking to RubgyPass ahead of the Hong Kong Sevens.

“I have been thinking about going back into XVs are various points, but really if I was to go back into the game, really, it’s to run a programme,” Ryan told RugbyPass.

The fact that England have no current attack coach has been jumped upon by critics of the Jones’ coaching regime who consider England’s attack to be lagging behind other Tier 1 rugby nations.

“I look at the England attack and I see what a lot of people see, it needs some more variation and some difference. They’ve got an excellent group of players there and I suppose I would have been interested perhaps, but it’s just not a big enough role.

“It’s not a big enough role and they don’t think they let you do these things part-time, which is the only way I would take a role in that group,” said Ryan, whose Fiji team won a gold medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016. “It’s just not a meaty enough job for me to give up all my other roles.

“I’m sure Eddie (Jones) has been looking around and will find an outstanding candidate. Like I said, they need to have a full review of what they are trying to do in attack.”

Ryan, who stepped down after the Rio Games was immortalised on the Fijian 50 cent coin following his side’s heroics in the tournament.

Initially, he joined the Welsh Rugby Union as a consultant in January of 2017 and has been working in various consultancy roles across a number of sports.

Former Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll, gold medal-winning coach Ben Ryan & ex-Wallabies captain George Gregan spoke with RugbyPass ahead of the Cathay Pacific/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens.