Sidcup had beaten OR’s 59-7 at their ground when Reigatian had to field a weaken team. The Home side were confident they could take the game to Sidcup especially after the victory over Sutton & Epsom just before Christmas.
Reigatian showed this confidence in the early exchanges with after ten minutes Harrison Mitchell scored an outstanding try down the right Wing beating a number of defenders before touching down in the corner.
Tom Baldwin kicked a great conversion from the touchline for the Home side to move into a 7-0 lead.
However the theme of the afternoon soon became the reliable boot of Sidcup’s flyhalf and the home side’s discipline. In the next ten minutes both teams swapped Penalties, and the score moved to 10-3. However with the Ref becoming frustrated with OR’s definition of the offside line. Sidcup scored another Penalty 10-6 before The Referee showed Tom Baldwin a yellow card. Down to 14 men OR’s moved into an attacking position and this time Sidcup fell foul of the Ref but with the normal goal kicker in the sin bin the kick was unsuccessful. However the Sidcup had another opportunity before half time and moved within 1 point. 10-9 at Half Time.
At the start of the second half with Tom Baldwin due back on the pitch in 2 minutes when fullback Will Parker was also shown a yellow card again for offside in the middle of the pitch. So briefly down to 13 men. Another two penalties scored by Sidcup moving them ahead to 10-15, With just one score in it and Parker returned to the field of play it looked like the game was in the balance. At a ruck the ball had come out the side and Harrison Mitchell retrieved. Unfortunately the Referee felt Mitchell had entered the ruck from the side and shown a yellow card and for the third time and back down to 14 players it was going to be impossible to regain the lead in fact Sidcup manged their 6th Penalty to give a final score of 10-18.
Clearly a competitive game that didn’t reflect the gap in league positions to score the only try of the game was testament to the performance of the Home Team and if they had all stayed on the pitch for 80 minutes it could easily been a different result. Special mention for Sam Foreman who played his 150th game for the Club. Moving only 4 games behind the Club’s most capped player Mark Chesterton.
Old Reigatian 1st XV
- Ciaran Lee
- Ciaran Nestor
- Val Garrec
- Reilly Franklin Talbot ©
- Dan Grant
- Sam Foreman
- Ryan Taylor Travers
- Joey Goldsmith
- Alex Skinner
- Ben Holder
- Jonny Bridges
- Tom Baldwin
- Tom Allen
- Harrison Mitchell
- Will Parker
- Ethan Monk
- Sam Lenihan
- Lucas Overtoom