13th March 2010


Maidenhead 18 - 33 Reading
(league fixture)
 

Up front this was a relatively even contest with Maidenhead winning their fair share of set scrums and line-outs and besting Reading in the loose with strong pick-and-drives, but the backs never really got going and were not able to stop Reading’s strong direct running.

The first score went to Reading in the first few minutes to put them 5 – 0 up. The next score went to Maidenhead with a penalty after about 25 minutes. In the intervening 20 minutes most of the play was in the Maidenhead half with their defence holding up well but with the Reading forwards keeping up the pressure. Eventually this pressure told and a couple of mistakes saw them score under the posts after a poor kick out of defence by Maidenhead. This was followed by a period of sustained Reading pressure during which they scored again under the posts and both sides lost a player to the sin-bin after a bit of handbags. So after a first half that lasted 50 minutes, despite there being no injury time to speak, of the score was 19 – 3 to Reading.

The second half lasted 40 minutes, despite there being a lot of injury time, and saw Maidenhead open the scoring with a penalty then almost immediately score two good tries. The first saw Lester Martin punch a hole in the Reading defence and Bale Nasili go in under the posts, the second followed an excellent series of drives by the forwards which put Paul Savage in, also under the posts. That made the score 19 – 18 to Reading and they were reeling. But having got right back into the game Maidenhead couldn’t get their noses in front and two more tries by Reading brought about by direct running in the backs saw the last 10 minutes of the game fizzle out.

Final score, 33 – 18 to Reading, probably a fair result.

Written by David ‘The Pencil’ Anthony.

 
(Match statistics)