Wests Warriors 28-8 Reading Raiders, London & South East Championship

A DEPLETED Reading Raiders squad put up a strong fight but fell away towards the end as Wests Warriors A took the spoils at Grasshoppers RFC on Saturday (17).

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Battling a number of last-minute dropouts and an energy-sapping heat, the Raiders started strongly and full-back, Ben Mitchell, who put in a strong performance throughout, put Reading into the lead with a well-taken try.

The Raiders dominated the first 20 minutes of the match against their more experienced hosts but were unable to get any more points on the board and Wests equalised a little against the run of play.

Reading were then dealt a huge blow when influential scrum-half, John Boucher, picked up a serious injury which sidelined him for much of the rest of the game, although he did make a short but unsuccessful return to the pitch in the second half.

Warriors, with a full quota in their squad, upped their game and went ahead 8-4 at half time.

The heat was having more of an impact on the Raiders, who operated with 14 players for most of the match, in the second half and Wests edged further ahead.

Head Coach Alex Fox showed good strength to hold off a few challenges and score to the right of the posts as Reading stayed in touching distance score-wise of the Warriors.

The game was in the balance until the last 10 or 15 minutes as a few more Wests tries put some gloss on the result.

The score didn't do justice to the game and the Raiders could be very proud of their efforts on a challenging day both numbers-wise and weather-wise.

The players' man of the match went to stand-off, Alex Dorliac, who directed the team around the pitch authoritatively and the club man of the match went to Josh Nichol who was impressive in the forwards, carrying well on his Raiders debut.

Team

Ben Mitchell; Kheson Howard, Dan Witko, Alex Fox, Stephen Orwin; Alex Dorliac, John Boucher; Andy Parr (C), Brad Walters, Josh Nichol, Jake Parker, Ed House, George House

Interchanges

Steve King, David Rosi, Andrew Belt