Reading Abbey 3rds 25 v Maidenhead 3rds 5
Saturday 21st January 2007

A changed Maidenhead side travelled away to the home of Reading abbey on this cold and windy afternoon.

Maidenhead lost the toss which proved costly meaning they played the first half into the sun and a very strong wind, most of the first period was played within the Maidenhead half as any clearance attempts failed to get them to far out of trouble. Maids had two or three breaks were they could have scored, and had the full back “Ginge” decided to race in at the corner instead of side stepping approximately 12 foot into touch Maids would have been on the score board in the first half. Maids defended extremely well but succumbed three times to the Abbey attack in the first 40 minutes, Abbey went in at half time 15 points in front having missed all three conversions.

Maids came out more confident in the second half knowing they didn’t have the elements against them, with good drives from the forwards and an excellent run from No. 8 Mike Anthony early on, they came close to the line and eventually spread the ball wide to centre Tim Robinson who went down in the corner, the conversion unfortunately narrowly missing the mark. Maids had further chances in the second half, unfortunately handling errors at costly times scuppered any more try scoring opportunities and Abbey ran in two more tries making the final score a little flattering at 25 – 5.

Written by Tim “Scrum Cap” Smalley