READING ABBEY Nuns recorded a 15th straight victory as they thrashed Crowthorne 31-7 to move six points clear at the top of the table, writes Fiona Tomas.

Crowthorne took an early lead as centre Jess Irvine powered through the Abbey defence to set up Rachel Franklin who went over the line for a converted try.

But Dave Swan’s side responded and after a string of ball carries from forwards Meg Fowler and Jess Potter, back row Joey Fowler gathered a grubber by fly half Annette Tomas and dived over for her second try in two games.

Ellie Rice followed up her box-kick with a tackle on the Crowthorne full-back, who spilled the ball. Tomas was on hand to tidy up and flew in underneath the posts for the Nuns’ second.

Hayley Matthews collected the ball from a scrum whose effort fell inches from the line, only for Tomas to gather and cross.

The second-half saw Tomas exploit a space on the blind side to cross for her hat-trick, before Denton picked an impressive line to run in for the bonus-point try.

  • A DEPLETED Reading Abbey were stunned 18-11 by lowly Oxford Harlequins in their South West One East tussle at Rosehill.

Quins’ kicker Huw Dimond and Abbey’s Olly Walton traded penalties before the visitors scored the opening try through No. 8 Pete Alston to lead 8-3 at the break.

Harlequins prop Pete Boulton charged over for a converted try at the start of the second half before Walton cut the gap with a second penalty.

Abbey scored the try of the match when Ben Mitchell, Arron Ross and Gavin Dampies combined to send Charlie Gingell in. Yet Walton’s conversion drifted wide, and another Dimond three-pointer was the only further score.

Abbey visit Reading this Saturday (2.15pm).