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U16`s Kent League double success
David Aldridge30 Jan 2023 - 13:50
Sunday 29th January 2023
It was another double Kent league Sunday, for the U`16s, with the 2XV away to Bromley for their 6th and penultimate league match, and the 1XV traveling down to Thanet for round 4.
Both teams have been hit hard with injury and attendance of late, with the 2Xv only having 13 players available for their trip to Bromley who coincidentally were also short of numbers. Bromley’s problems were compounded with 4 dropouts on the morning of the game, meaning that they only had 10 x players, however a talk between coaches earlier in the week had agreed that almost regardless of numbers, game on principles would be adhered too for the game, so we had ourselves a game of lung busting, 10 aside.
With the low availability for this game mostly coming from our forwards, the Sidcup backline was still strong, and whether it was the space available, or Matt the coach’s rousing team talk and game plan, the boys just seemed to click. Admittedly Bromley helped in this, as by their own admission, they struggled in the first half with a number of errors (forced and unforced) gifting us possession from which we capitalised and scored. It wasn’t all one way though, and one sustained period of pressure from Bromley saw us camped in our 22 for over 10 minutes, but as Matt said at the post match, coaches debrief, the boys were “on it” today and defended as well as they attacked. We ran in 8 tries in all, including 2 x pairs (which had the respective parents sweating on having to buy a jug) with the match finishing 42 – 0 in Sidcup’s favour. Having lost their last three league games, it was important for morale and self esteem to get a win, meaning we go into our last league game in 2 weeks’ time with confidence high.
The 1XV took the long drive down to Planet Thanet for their 4th league game, determined to maintain their unbeaten record. Trying to predict a match outcome based on previous scorelines in the league, is a dangerous thing to do and clearly some players had been doing this and seemed to have had this fixture won before we had even passed Farthing Corner services. Although they have had a few players leave this season, Thanet are still a force to be reckoned with, and with home advantage, this was not going to be an easy fixture.
The early exchanges were error strewn with cold hands knocking and dropping plenty of times, but we gradually ramped up the pressure, with the first 25 minutes saw us exclusively in the Thanet half with a combination of poor decisions, poor hands and incredible defence keeping the scoreline 0-0 . We are a team that so far this season have put points on teams relatively quickly, so to have that much territory and possession and have nothing to show for it was something the boys hadn’t experienced, so quite how they reacted was of interest to the coaches. We finally broke the defences after 27 minutes to go 7 points up. This further galvanised Thanet who threw everything at us for the remaining time of the first half, with their big forwards used to excellent effect making good ground and carrying well off the crash ball, however we held out for a really bruising few minutes, and were pleased when half time came.
The second half saw Thanet playing with the wind in their favour and you could tell from the touchline that their tails were up. The first 20 minutes saw them play the wind in an attempt to keep us pinned in our half, however it was unpredictable, with a number of the kicks going through the dead ball area gifting us back territory, but even with these assists, we still struggled to break the Thanet defence. With the game still finely balanced after an hour, a planned move was called and finally the ball went through the hands correctly, resulting in a Sidcup try under the posts, to double the lead. The match continued in the same vein with no side really dominating until another line break, virtually on full time saw the game finish 21 to 0 to Sidcup.
No one can describe this game as a classic, it was at times dire, but as we come to the business end of the league games, it was still a good test, against good opposition, and we hope we are a better side because of it.
Both teams have been hit hard with injury and attendance of late, with the 2Xv only having 13 players available for their trip to Bromley who coincidentally were also short of numbers. Bromley’s problems were compounded with 4 dropouts on the morning of the game, meaning that they only had 10 x players, however a talk between coaches earlier in the week had agreed that almost regardless of numbers, game on principles would be adhered too for the game, so we had ourselves a game of lung busting, 10 aside.
With the low availability for this game mostly coming from our forwards, the Sidcup backline was still strong, and whether it was the space available, or Matt the coach’s rousing team talk and game plan, the boys just seemed to click. Admittedly Bromley helped in this, as by their own admission, they struggled in the first half with a number of errors (forced and unforced) gifting us possession from which we capitalised and scored. It wasn’t all one way though, and one sustained period of pressure from Bromley saw us camped in our 22 for over 10 minutes, but as Matt said at the post match, coaches debrief, the boys were “on it” today and defended as well as they attacked. We ran in 8 tries in all, including 2 x pairs (which had the respective parents sweating on having to buy a jug) with the match finishing 42 – 0 in Sidcup’s favour. Having lost their last three league games, it was important for morale and self esteem to get a win, meaning we go into our last league game in 2 weeks’ time with confidence high.
The 1XV took the long drive down to Planet Thanet for their 4th league game, determined to maintain their unbeaten record. Trying to predict a match outcome based on previous scorelines in the league, is a dangerous thing to do and clearly some players had been doing this and seemed to have had this fixture won before we had even passed Farthing Corner services. Although they have had a few players leave this season, Thanet are still a force to be reckoned with, and with home advantage, this was not going to be an easy fixture.
The early exchanges were error strewn with cold hands knocking and dropping plenty of times, but we gradually ramped up the pressure, with the first 25 minutes saw us exclusively in the Thanet half with a combination of poor decisions, poor hands and incredible defence keeping the scoreline 0-0 . We are a team that so far this season have put points on teams relatively quickly, so to have that much territory and possession and have nothing to show for it was something the boys hadn’t experienced, so quite how they reacted was of interest to the coaches. We finally broke the defences after 27 minutes to go 7 points up. This further galvanised Thanet who threw everything at us for the remaining time of the first half, with their big forwards used to excellent effect making good ground and carrying well off the crash ball, however we held out for a really bruising few minutes, and were pleased when half time came.
The second half saw Thanet playing with the wind in their favour and you could tell from the touchline that their tails were up. The first 20 minutes saw them play the wind in an attempt to keep us pinned in our half, however it was unpredictable, with a number of the kicks going through the dead ball area gifting us back territory, but even with these assists, we still struggled to break the Thanet defence. With the game still finely balanced after an hour, a planned move was called and finally the ball went through the hands correctly, resulting in a Sidcup try under the posts, to double the lead. The match continued in the same vein with no side really dominating until another line break, virtually on full time saw the game finish 21 to 0 to Sidcup.
No one can describe this game as a classic, it was at times dire, but as we come to the business end of the league games, it was still a good test, against good opposition, and we hope we are a better side because of it.
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