Guy's Hospital 3 - 38 Sidcup 3's

Sidcup IIIs on a match winning streak arrive at Honor Oak Park looking to keep the victorious habit going.

Short of some players due to international call ups, well Jorel was at Twickenham after all, the team was bolstered by Dee and Chris Orford joining from the 2s. Jorel was ably replaced by Fin at tighthead and he showed his academy class early on. Ben Carter joined us as well looking like a lad on a gap year with the man bun and Thai beach beard. He ably led the line out and was clearing rucks faster than an MP clears his browser history.

Kitted out and on the training paddock well before 230pm meant that Sidcup were suitably warmed up. So when kick off came and we all knew what to do, our Commander in Chief aka Captain Fantastic aka 210 aka Super Cooper quickly dropped ball from the kick off and Guys get the scrum in our 22 for very little effort on their part.

The usual ‘Cup scrum dominance meant excellent levels of possession but risky and unnecessary offloads and missed restarts put us under more pressure than we should have been.

Fin, like an angry marshmallow, took an interception needing 3 Guys men to take him down, the ball is spread wide and Mo gets bundled in to touch. The ensuing lineout was crooked and scrum supremacy meant that a penalty led to Sidcup being 0-3 up after 5 minutes with Joel slotting the penalty. Good decision by Captain Fantastic to go for the points.

Thinking that this would be an easy canter given our top of the table ranking and Guy’s lowly position meant that Sidcup’s usual standards slipped and lack of supporting lines and poor concentration made Guy’s look better than they were. A hack through from a loose pass meant Mo was outnumbered 4 to 1, but relief to us all the ball went dead, scrum back White ball.

Games ebb and flow and while we may have had the lion’s share of possession and territory we still had to do the basics right. 210 showed his old man strength and held the ball up in the tackle meaning a scrum to Sidcup. Joel carried hard from a short ball off the 10 and was subsequently yellow carded for a dangerous carry after the collision nearly killed the tackler. Guys slot over the 3 points and a game where we should have been well ahead on the score board meant that we are now level at 3-3

This seemed to jolt us and we slowly made our way back down the pitch. Good possession from the lineout, a dart from JT, a quick clear of the ruck, pop up to Fin to crash over for the first try, 3-8, Sam Fister missing the conversion.

Joel returns to bring the complement back up to 15, but we fall back into silly habits and the Sonny Bill Williams in us all emerged with offloads being flung and no look passes going to ground.

The Guys back row caused problems all day as they turned over ball and hard carries from their 6 and 8 meant that Sidcup was forced to defend. Their 8 was particularly excellent at turning over ball in the tackle and we must learn to look after the pill better.

However, we were at least playing in the right part of the pitch, Odhran takes a quick pass from Carter, crashes over from 5 yards, spins and dots down to score probably the greatest try in Sidcup history, 3-15 after Joel converts.

Half time follows with Maz and John Wilde on for Odhran and Dee.

This, along with the introduction of Lippy, seems to ground us and we stop the risky passes, preferring to work hard and graft using old fashioned hard work. We spend the vast majority of the second 40 in Guys half, ensuring the pressure was firmly on them. Seeing the game slipping away they resorted to late hits, high tackles and illegally slowing the ball down. In an effort to even things up the ref let these go unpunished. Sidcup lifted their standards and responded to this by running hard and scoring tries.

Dodd and Dee return following injuries to Chris and the hooker. Brilliant breaks from Dee, JT, Alex and Max bring us up the pitch.

Scrum dominance continues for ‘Cup, but Guys fall apart and using their 5thand 6th different front row combination, scrum penalty after scrum penalty gets ‘Cup in the right position on the park.

Tries follow from JT, Max and Chris Orford, who was rightly named Man of the Match turned pressure in to points. Disallowed tries from Tom Dunster (I thought he had stopped playing to prepare for the London Marathon) and Chris Orford would have put an unkind and undeserved gloss to the score board.

Final whistle and Sidcup leave the field, 3-38 winners.

It is said that the sign of a good team is one that wins while not playing well.

We were certainly not at our best but still came away with the win. A lesson to us all is had the opposition been better prepared we might have had a very different result.

Train hard, play hard, win well.

#YAMS
#Byouractionsyouwillknowus