James Rodwell was among England's try scorers during a narrow win over Wales in their opening match © AP

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England made a winning start to their campaign in the Cathay Pacific-HSBC Hong Kong Sevens on Friday by defeating opening pool stage opponents Wales.

Tries by captain Tom Mitchell, Dan Bibby, Phil Burgess and James Rodwell saw England home 26-19, but they were made to work hard by a Wales team that responded with a Luke Morgan double, plus one touchdown from full Wales international Rhodri Williams.

"The atmosphere in Hong Kong is incredible and the first game can often be difficult, adjusting to everything that is going on," Mitchell said.

"We didn't stick to our game-plan the way we intended and as a result let Wales take advantage.

"There were some strong individual performances in attack. A few lads are playing in Hong Kong for the first time and it was good to see them stepping up."

England face further pool fixtures against the United States and Kenya on Saturday, with those countries' first game resulting in a 21-14 success for the USA.

Meanwhile the All Blacks Sevens have kickstarted their Hong Kong title defence with a comfortable 26-7 win over Scotland.

First-half tries to skipper DJ Forbes and Sherwin Stowers were matched in the second half by Tim Mikkelson and teenage standout Rieko Ioane, with Beaudine Waaka nailing three of the four conversions. Scotland kept pace early on with through Fraser Lyle, restricting New Zealand to a 14-7 half-time lead.

Forbes says the first-up performance was encouraging, but the Kiwis will need to lift in their remaining pool matches against Portugal and Australia later on Saturday. "There were a few errors so obviously a lot to work on for tomorrow, but so far so good," he said.

After a slow start to the nine-tournament series, second-placed New Zealand have closed within five points of leaders South Africa but are only two points ahead of Fiji, who won the most recent tournament in Las Vegas last month.

Australia also kicked off their campaign with a winning start hammering Portugal 33-5. A quick try-scoring double from captain Ed Jenkins put Australia in an enviable 14-point lead, before the Portugese closed the gap with a Aderito Esteves try. But the Portugese just couldn't hold back the rampaging Australian side in the second half with the Aussies playing most of the second half in the Portugese half.

After a 14-month stint on the sideline through injury, ShannonWalker made a glorious return with a dazzling run downfield to dot the ball down under the posts just before the full-time siren.

Australian Men's Sevens Head Coach Geraint John said: "To finish with a score like that against a side like Portugal is very pleasing. They have the ability to upset teams and they did exceptionally well in Las Vegas. It was good to get everybody on the field, including Brad [Wilkin] who got four minutes of action as well as Shannon [Walker]."

Elsewhere, Fiji crushed Samoa 38-12, South Africa defeated Argentina 24-0, France beat Japan 24-7 and Canada brushed aside Belgium 28-12.