Good stick and rudder, you mean compensating for a crappy designed aeroplane, because in the good old days, that is what you are doing.
Not that I have flown a Sopwith.
Try doing lots of crosswind landings and get the instructor to put you to one side of the runway on short final, then learn to re-position onto the centreline.
You will quickly learn what the controls are for and how effective they are.
I bet 90% of instructor couldn't put an aircraft say 50 feet right of the threshold at 50 feet and then position back onto the centreline.