Maidstone Festival Bowl Final: Sidcup v Blackheath A

A sluggish start in the first game saw us lose 0-3 to Aylesford followed by a much closer 3-4 encounter with Medway, however it was clear that our usually formidable Sidcup U9 defence had lost some of its spark. After a brief refresher exercise on rucking from the coaches, it was straight into the third game against Cranbrook Ospreys, a team that had won trophies at both their previous festivals and were unbeaten in 11 games.
The Sidcup U9s showed us again that great resolve, as they have done repeatedly over the past three weekends when lesser teams would have crumbled and faded under this pressure, suddenly they looked back to the team that we have come to expect, firing again on all cylinders. As Cranbrook relentlessly tried to break down our defense and punch holes through our back line, our Sidcup players where up to this challenge as they answered everything thrown at them. They say the best form of defense is attack and we took a scum 5 meters from our own try line, a pass was fumbled backwards and the ball bounced around on the floor, it was finally scooped up and passed to a Sidcup player who forced his way up the field. From the rear he looked like a soldier that had had enough of being in the trenches as he charged and traversed across the battle field into no-mans-land. A roar went up as he scored our second magnificent end to end try of the day to take a 1-0 lead into half time.
If ever our players needed proof that a good tackle is equally as important as scoring a try, they learned it in the second half as the captain riled up his team and led by example - whenever Cranbrook looked like scoring certain trys our Sidcup boys and girl took the big Cranbrook players to the floor and into touch time and time again. But our U9s did not just hang on to the lead, they continued to take the game to their opponents and proved worthy victors. Sidcup 1 - Cranbrook 0.

Next up in the last group game were host team Maidstone - apart from a splendid try saving tackle and a later try from one of the Maidstone girls, they proved no match for the now confident Sidcup U9s as we took a comfortable 5-1 win. The players had earned a 3rd place play-off against Blackheath A, but with two early tries in the first half by Blackheath, our mighty Sidcup warriors run out of steam.

Well done Sidcup U9s, we are very proud of each and everyone of you.

Who are we...

SIDCUP!!!