Yellow cards delay deserved win

What a picture - the ground was in immaculate condition ahead of the season opener against Wimbledon. "In all my years at this club [and that is a considerable number of years!], I've never seen the pitch look so good." said Phil West, former club President. Congratulations and thanks are due to Mark 'Groundo' Sawyer and his team of gounds party workers who give up their time to help Mark and Smudge prepare the grounds.

On the green carpet, the interpretation of the scrummage law by last Saturday's referee perplexed not only Sidcup's Sam Carmen who saw yellow after only 25 minutes of the first half but also British & Irish Lions prop Tim Payne (now a coach at Wimbledon) who also struggled to understand the referee's view.

Wimbledon were able to take advantage of the many first half penalties that went their way but Sidcup, despite being reduced to 13 men at one stage, moved the ball well for Nat Scales to score on his debut from 20m out. Half time score 5 - 9 but this was to be a game of two halves. A much more dominant performance in the second half saw Sidcup take control and Jamie Cutler added three penalty kicks to one added by Wimbledon and the third of Jamie's kicks meant that Sidcup were now in front for the first time in the game.

Then came Dickie Day's moment - luck or class, who knows - but as space and options ran out, the outrageous dummy was bought by the defending winger and having covered 40m Dickie dotted down in Millwall corner to leave Jamie a difficult conversion attempt. Jamie did not disappoint; Sidcup 21 - Wimbledon 12. And then one for the forwards. A line out catch and drive from fully 25m and Steve Evans came up with the ball but the credit goes to all of the players involved in the powerful drive and Jamie added the extras. Full time Sidcup 28 - Wimbledon 12.

All in all, a satisfactory performance against a side that have previously proven to be difficult opponents.

Team: Page; Duffus (England), Carmen, Evans S, Thomas, Eiffert (Holland), Grayson, West (c), Vincent (Ibrahim), Cutler, Scales, Thomson, Berry, Day, Evans D