Flair is overrated

Flair is overrated
Written by Chris Awful

After rectifying a blot on the success of the season last week, Sidcup 2XV were under no illusion that it was vital that they ensured they did a professional job on a well drilled Tunbridge Wells team.

The team saw some significant changes in the backline with Sebastian Ellison stepping into number 10 chasing the title of 'best 10 in the club' to add to his self-proclaimed titles 'best winger and kicker in the club' and yours truly stepping into Wing after hearing Louis Keeley would be unavailable for the next two weeks and deciding that the back row just seemed like too much hard work.

The game started like any other, with a kick off. Sidcup slowly built momentum up the pitch from this with the forwards, deciding the expansive game we had trained for the last 8 months wasn't going to work on the nice, dry Saturday afternoon.

This blatant disregard for Head Coach Jones's tactic paid almost immediate dividends when the marauding berserker that is Gilbert crashed through there Tunbridge Wells line to score the first try of the afternoon. Mr Ellison added the remaining two for a comfortable 7-0 lead.

As the game began again, Charlie Warner plucked the ball out of the air of a kick off that was falling short and stormed up the pitch for an excellent gain. From this Sidcup started to build positively, gaining a penalty from Tunbridge and using it to convert into territory. This set play can only be described as majestic. Ollie White through the perfect arrow to a leaping Conor, then with a break from tradition, Sidcup passed it out. Puppet master Ellison was spoilt for choice with every running line available to him. Ollie Vidgeon cut the perfect line to slice the Tunbridge defence in half and glide under the posts effortlessly. Seb converted the two for a 14-0 lead.

With Sidcup being concerned they were giving the spectators two much of a good thing, started to capitulate after this. At moments Sidcup showed the class and elegance of earlier with the youngster Joe Elliott running some lovely lines and Dave "The Paintrain" Fawole carrying hard.

After some tireless defence Wells managed to score in the corner to make it 14-5. Fortunately Keith "Chop City" Forward was not watching as after some poor defence Tunbridge scored under the posts to make it 14-12. Unfortunately at this point we lost Joe Elliott due to a bruised shin so on came Colin Cooper, who after years of begging successive coaches to allow him to play in the back line was finally given his chance.

Sidcup realised that they needed to sort this out and so refocused and managed to graft their way up the pitch and force a penalty. Golden Boots Ellison added the 3 with a lovely and almost arguably unnecessary curling effort from in front of the posts. It was at this point we lost Gilbert so on stepped the ever enthusiastic Ian Wilson, now in his third year of attempted retirement.

With half time approaching Sidcup attempted to play out the half but some good Tunbridge play lead to them climbing up the pitch with a line out. An excellently worked move led to their 8 using Seb as a speed bump as he clambered over the line. We went into half time with the scores at 17-19.

Strong words were said at half time by the ever passionate Captain, Conor Cooper, and Sidcup knew that they had to change their approach to the game to nullify the Tunbridge attack.

The second half started strongly with Sidcup almost immediately gaining a penalty deep in the Tunbridge half with Seb knocking over another 3 to make it 20-19.

Everything started to click for Sidcup from this point onwards with both attack and defence looking sharp. Holes started to appear in the Tunbridge defence and dynamic runners such as Pain Train slid through with a lovely carry and a 7 v 1 overlap to his left. Dave decided however that no tackle was going to hold him and so proceeded to just get back up and keep going. The ref unfortunately had other ideas and gave Tunbridge a penalty.

For the next ten minutes very little happened with both sides stuck in a fierce stalemate. This deadlock was broken, however, by a strong set piece move by Sidcup followed by some strong carries from Colin and Ollie in the centres. A well worked move down the blindside led to myself ending up with the ball. Some say it was an excellently worked 200m run by myself and that it probably involved a chip kick...others will say it was a textbook DSP with one of the most awkward dives over the tryline that is humanly possible. Who is to say which one is true? Seb in utter shock that I had somehow scored proceeded to miss his only kick of the afternoon leaving the score at 25-19.

From this point in Sidcup looked in complete control of the match with Tunbridge often pinned back in their own 22 for lots of the match. Chris Neil at one point must have thought he was playing NFL and was stealing a nice 20 yard kick return after running directly into touch after a good clearance kick from Tunbridge Wells.

From this Sidcup weathered some late pressure from Tunbridge and an excellent turnover lead to Sidcup climbing up the pitch. It was at this point Ollie White, having taken this week’s training of "affecting the breakdown" to heart, did just so with an excellently timed clear out which lead to a number of protests from Tunbridge. In all the commotion the small and nimble Sean Osborne dived over the line for the final score of the match. A simple conversion rounded out the score to 32-19.

This was a good performance by Sidcup who at parts of the match played with real attacking swagger. It was said after the match that this time a year ago if Sidcup had gone in down at half time, it is likely that they would have gone on to lose the game. It is a real testament to how far this team has come in the last year. Nothing can also be taken away from Tunbridge Wells who are a well drilled and dangerous team when they are allowed to gain momentum.
Onwards and upwards into the last few weeks of the season Sidcup go.