Reading Raiders continued their excellent form as they prevailed in a tense battle to take the points away at Bath Gladiators.
Raiders were promised an intriguing game of Rugby League at the home of their Wiltshire opponents and this certainly proved to be the case.
The starting line-up afforded the opportunity to make use of the interchange bench, to experiment with players new to the game, and in a variety of positional changes as the match progressed.
Raiders started confidently and were rewarded with an early try under the posts, taken from close range from Luke Schofield and goaled by Ben Radford.
From the resulting restart, Bath worked an incisive set and were quickly threatening the Raiders line, and were rewarded with a try in the 10th minute for Salter who dodged through a defensive gap to crash over and score.
The conversion by Frost brought the scores level at 6-6 and the play was beginning to show a ‘to and fro’ quality that continued throughout the contest.
Zac Mayo, an early forward substitute, wasted no time in adding his stamp on the game with a powerful surge that resulted in a try off a perfect Robinson pass.
Suffering from a punishing penalty count and a few critical handling errors, the Raiders conceded another Bath first half try from Cockshotand Frost converted to make it 12-12.
Eliot Wilson broke the deadlock, seizing an opportunity to scurry over for a try to take a 20-12 half-time lead.
Bath pulled off a brace of quick tries from the tackle from Cockshott again, both from close range. Frost added the two conversions.
Luke Schofield from full-back weaved through the defence, breaking tackles and fending off defenders in his progress to the line.
Bath kicked to the corner for Dryden to gather and score what could have been the crucial try.
A missed conversion attempt, just pushed wide by Frost, brought some hope for a final Raiders’ attempt to rescue the game.
In a vigorous phase of play, Reading’s Matt Wise was sin-binned for an aggressive illegal tackle on Cockshott. A resulting penalty from Frost went wide of the post.
As the clock ticked towards full-time, it was Luke Schofield who determinedly began another telling run in his spectacular route to the line for a fine try which sealed the match for Raiders.
Radford’s sixth goal concluded the finale to a highly competitive Raiders’ third consecutive victory.
Reading Raiders: Luke Schofield; Max Boucher; Tom Plater; Brad Walters; Elliot Wilson; Ben Radford; John Boucher; Lewis Donnelly; Sol Wallis-Robinson; Andy Parr; Dave Abbott; Ed Whelan; Charlie Carter. Replacements from: Matt Wise; Zac Mayo; Ollie Shore; Gavin Egan; Dan Teeling; Christian Floyd; Lewis O’Connor.
Match report by Dave Part
