Sidcup 23. CS Rugby 1863 13.

The "Civil Service" last won at Sidcup in 1955/56 and hopes that drought might be ended - admittedly the sides had not met for 30 years - were high when the away side started brightly with the benefit of a swirling and not inconsiderable breeze. Soon they were camped on or about the home side's twenty two but the home defence was up for the challenge and with ball in hand yardage gained and conceded was cancelling itself out. But retention is nine tenths of the law and the Stags' control meant Sidcup were constantly at full stretch and scrambling and the seemingly inevitable happened after 8 minutes with fly-half Liam Cleary - a late change to the starting line-up - darting over to score under the posts.

Patience and exact play had been rewarded and the CS supporters were expecting more of the same, with the template for the afternoon's play established.

That it never happened was as much due to CS's failure to recognise that rewards are often only achieved by such exemplary hard work as Sidcup's refusal to be cowed.

In trying now to cut corners CS were attracting the wrath of referee Nikki O'Donnell, who had an excellent game, and a succession of penalties for lazy and inexact work at the breakdown, meant that CS no longer had a monopoly on possession or indeed anything like it. The only other scoring acts of the first half were to be three penalties: two to the home side and one to CS. With the score 6-10 and the second half meteorology and topography favouring Sidcup, this was going to be a good game to win against a side whose record to date was two wins and a draw.

One almost sure way not to win of course is to decide that throwing the ball around sevens style and, more often than not, a long way from hand is the order of the day and CS appeared to have acquired that death wish. The lessons from CS's excellent start had clearly been completely forgotten. It made for painful viewing and with occasional but crucial first-up tackles now also being missed, the writing was on the wall. Sidcup in truth could have scored more than the two converted tries and late penalty that they did, all this after CS had started the second half encouragingly with a penalty that had stretched their lead to 6-13.

To sour the beer further, with the score 23-13 and only minutes remaining, and with CS therefore requiring an unlikely two scores to win but 10 points to draw, and only 3 to secure a losing bonus point, the decision was taken to kick to the corner and reject a kickable (although no gimme in the conditions) penalty. Predictably the line-out went astray.

Next week CS are at home to Brighton (KO at Duke's Meadows at 1500).