There had initially been scepticism about Siddons and his "way". But when an old bloke like Papps was suddenly hitting balls back over bowlers' heads, en route to scoring 609 runs at 76.12 in last season's 50-over competition, that changed.
Siddons' philosophy is now applied across the board in all of CW's programmes, right down to the 13-year-olds starting out in the Future Firebirds' scheme.
"To be totally honest, we've not been very good at producing batsmen," CW college cricket co-ordinator Rhys Morgan said.
"Take James Franklin out of the equation, whose batting's improved as his career's gone on, but before that you're looking at the likes of [Bruce] Edgar as the last guy we brought through the school ranks and turned into a pretty good international batsman.
"Things really had to change."
Which has meant unbundling the games of Year 9 and 10 players and giving them the tools to hit the ball hard and straight.
"It's about early preparation, in terms of picking your bat up, and there was maybe a little bit of a misunderstanding around the fact people thought it was just about a high backlift," said Morgan....
Right now those hopes are pinned on Henry Walsh. Not only because the 19-year-old's arguably the cleanest hitter of a ball in town, but because he's largely free of the coaching that can stymie emerging careers.
Walsh's free and full swing of the bat is exactly what Siddons preaches, so he's been left to play that way.
"I'm a little bit bigger than the average guy, so I've got that extra power and I've always hit straight and always looked to hit big. It's just my natural game," Walsh said.
Morgan believes Walsh is the prototype of the next generation of Wellington cricketers and that these methods are not a fad that will disappear when Siddons does.
