Sidcup 2ndXV vs Medway 2ndXV

Sidcup 2ndXV vs Medway 2ndXV

Despite the weather of late, Saturday’s conditions had the crowd excited at the possibility of an expansive free flowing game.
Sidcup made good ground from the kick-off and looked to be in with a good chance of getting into the Red-Zone early on, until an unfortunate pass led to an early Medway Try.

An exchange of penalties saw Sidcup get onto the scoresheet from the boot of Steve McNamara, although it was proving to be a slow start which has been seen too often at Crescent Farm, possibly due to the fact that Sidcup were running in the opposite direction to the Bar.
There was a bit of an arm-wrestle in the middle of the park for what seemed like twenty minutes, as Sidcup warmed into the game, with a few well supported line breaks by Billy Williams, coming back from injury, which should have resulted in more points. Sidcup managed to get a lineout in the Medway corner. Catch and drive, Anton at the back of the maul gobbled up the opportunity for his first 2nd XV Try, doing well to keep it away from the pile of bodies so that the ref could see it clearly. Unconverted.

The Medway re-start highlighted a slight concern that reared its head on several occasions, where the opportunity to secure the ball and attack again was lost. This is something that kept the arm-wrestle in the middle of the park going for most of the first half. Sidcup showed some great defensive work in this period, including a moment of electric speed from Prop Dave Fawole smashing the Medway Fly-half as he received the ball. Unfortunately this was a one-off from Dave, leaving the crowd wanting more. The wrestle continued until some pressure on the Medway 5 metre line led to a charge down for Sam Adams, keeping a cool head amongst the Medway defence, to run onto and score a try which was converted by Steve McNamara, taking the teams into Half-Time with the score at 15-8.

After a Hairdryer from Coach Martin Leamonn, trying to inspire the Sidcup boys into improving the basics which would steer them to a simple victory, a hash was made of the re-start and the arm-wrestle resumed. Sidcup took more control of the next moments of the 2nd Half and started to exert some pressure, resulting in a lineout on the Medway 22 metre line, which saw a clean catch and pop to Colin Cooper who then PASSED to 2nd Row Phil Evans who CAUGHT the ball and hit a line that a Centre would be proud of, only to stumble, wrong footing their defenders and luckily gather his feet to run in the try past a lack-lustre Medway last line of defence. Converted again by Steve McNamara. A further exchange of penalties took the score to 25-11 with 15 minutes to go.

Although Medway seemed down and out at this point, they continued to battle well, scoring a try from distance taking the score to 25-18. Some sturdy defence from Sidcup, including a Try-saving tackle from Teddy, kept them at bay. Alex Barwick, having come on for the last 20 minutes was sin-binned for a questionable high tackle, although it was part of continuing good work in defence. Medway also lost a player to the Bin for trying to slap Max O’leary, but the Sidcup 10 had been too nimble for the whole game to fall foul of it.

A solid team performance that would have troubled the scoreboard more if a few passes had gone to hand for one reason or another. Billy Williams trucking the ball up off of Max creating opportunities galore. Great defensive work from 1 to 15, notably in the Centres from Colby MacMahon and Sam Adams. Solid Goal Kicking. Lineout and Scrum were never an issue, and good dog work from the forward pack, including Man of the Match Ben Carter.

Written by - Tom Wicks