Redingensians captain Tom Clare bagged three tries to give his side a first ever league victory over their Sonning based rivals and their first victory of any kind for twenty five years. It was a well deserved victory with the Bath Road side being sharper and more physical at the vital stages of the game. Reading were not helped by losing Ben Hughes, Dan Philips and Paul Fisher, who are often the backbone of their forward effort, to injury and illness during the week and by some of the refereeing, especially in the tackle area, but ultimately their supporters will have no complaints with this result.

Redingensians started the game as they meant to go on and virtually camped in Reading territory for the first twenty five minutes by which time they had taken a 14-0 lead through tries from Parfitt from a pushover after Reading were put under pressure at a series of scrums and by Clare following a number of phases of attack. Both of these were converted by Matthams who by this stage had already, luckily for Reading, missed three relatively easy penalties.

Reading briefly came back into the game when for the first time they moved the ball to Bakoso, the hero of the first game between the teams, on the Redingensians ten metre line and he easily beat his man to score under the posts for Goodhew to convert. Their brief spell of liveliness was brought to an abrupt halt however when they were unable to control a ball they had stolen at a line out and Clements ran it back for Clare to finish off for his second try.

The beginning of the second half was the same as the first with Redingensians dominating possession and territory. Reading’s woes were soon added to when Cornish was yellow carded for coming in at the side of a ruck and Matthams converted the resulting penalty. Redingensians then took advantage of the extra man by working the phases to eventually put winger Clements in the clear to score in the corner. They soon added to this when Clare completed his hat trick by scoring in the other corner following a forward drive.

To their credit Reading fought back and Bakoso crossed to score under the posts following a back move after they had established a position in their opponents twenty two and exerted their first real pressure of the half. They continued to have slightly the better of the play in the last ten minutes but were unable to make any impact on the score board despite some good runs from Bakoso who throughout looked to be easily their most dangerous player. Ultimately Redingensians, whose back row, in particular Stapley, who was a constant thorn in Reading’s side with his strong running ably supported by Parfitt and Watkins, exercised a control on the game that Reading were unable to break free from. For Reading, Bakoso looked their only real threat and although weakened by the withdrawals in the pack, they will have to start to put some results together quickly as this defeat has put them into the relegation zone, having now only won one game since their victory in the equivalent fixture in October.

READING: Alex Dorliac; Sean Lynch, Taniela Bakoso, Oliver Smith, Duncan Mollinson; Tom Goodhew, Richard Lester; John Auld (Graham Harvey 58 mins), Steve King, Andrew Grierson, Sean Keneally, Robert Taylor(capt), Matt Cornish, Jonathan Cranton, Matt Davies (Adam Beale 65 mins).

MATCH FACTS:20mins Parfitt try Matthams con(7-0), 22 mins Clare try Matthams con (14-0), 31 mins Bakoso try Goodhew con (14-7), 35 mins, Clare try (19-7), 48 mins Matthams pen(22-7)56 mins Clements try (27-7) 62mins Clare try (32-7) 64mins Bakoso try Goodhew con (32-14) .

Peter Chidgey