Excellent time in side anticipating action? (7)

I believe the answer is:

waiting

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'anticipating action?' is the definition.
'waiting' can be an answer for 'anticipating' (thesaurus). I'm not sure about the 'action?' bit.

'excellent time in side' is the wordplay.
'excellent' becomes 'ai' (resembles 'Aw', old-fashioned term for excellent).
'time' becomes 't' (abbreviation).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'side' becomes 'wing' (as in left and right wings).
'ai'+'t'='ait'
'ait' placed into 'wing' is 'WAITING'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for waiting that I've seen before include "Serving at table" , "holding back" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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