On a grey day at Reading Abbey’s Peppard Road ground Abbey kicked off at 10:30 am playing uphill and with the benefit of a strong, bitingly cold wind behind them.
The first five minutes was a tough battle with both teams trying to set their marker down. After some great defending and with the forwards winning a ruck Bracknell’s backs moved the ball to right-wing Charlie G. who made an outside break on the halfway line and it looked like he would run in and score unopposed. Unfortunately, Abbey’s right-wing tracked back at lightning speed across the pitch to catch him a metre short of the line to save what looked to be a certain try. In the following ruck, Abbey managed to scramble the ball away.
Abbey were boosted by this but for the next ten minutes, the match continued with honours even until Abbey scored wide out on the right. The Bracknell forwards battled away and were probably playing some of their best rugby of the season to contain Abbey’s big set of forwards.
However, Abbey’s inside centre took control of the half and with the Bracknell backs defending too shallow he put in some challenging kicks over the top to set up several more scores so by half time the Hurricanes found themselves 35-0 down.
The second half started and Abbey scored two more quick tries to lead 47-0 before Bracknell were awarded a penalty 30 metres out in front of the posts. Bracknell’s fly-half Zach P. stepped up to reduce the deficit to 47-3.
Abbey bounced back with two more quick tries, again by moving the ball wide to their pacey wingers to make outside breaks and score in the corner.
The Bracknell boys battled back and with swift passing through the backs put right-wing James W. into space 40 metres out to almost score in the corner but the Abbey defence caught him just short of the line. A couple of rucks later and James W. dived over to score a well-deserved try. Zach P. stepped up and slotted the extras from wideout.
The final score 57-10 to Abbey.
The score didn’t reflect the quality of some of Bracknell’s play but against a team as big, fast and as physical as Abbey there were too many missed tackles with the Bracknell players going in too high and getting handed off and too many times the Bracknell boys lost the ball in contact.
The Abbey coaches nominated Bracknell’s fullback Harry M. as their choice for Man Of The Match and Bracknell’s coaches nominated Abbey’s outside centre as their choice. There were notable performances by Bracknell’s Sam G. and James B. in the forwards.

Report -Ian Manners