SOUTH West One East basement boys Reading RFC belied their lowly league position to test table-toppers Maidenhead, albeit ultimately losing 28-5.

Already relegated, the Reading side have been told by Andy Arter, acting Director of Rugby, that he wants to see week on week improvement, in preparation for next season.

Arter was pleased with much of what he saw, stating: “It’s not what we came for but we didn’t go backwards. We won the battle up front and created some good opportunities. It was an epic effort and should be a platform for next season.”

Reading have been slow out of the blocks in recent games, but they could not have started better here, scoring within minutes of the kick off.

From a line-out catch-and-drive, scrum half Nick Portch sent the ball out right to fly half Matt Hill who linked with flanker John Cranton. He brought the ball back left for No. 8 Charlie Davies to score a well-worked try.

The home team settled into a rhythm, spreading the ball around their 3G pitch.

Within five minutes they took the lead when space was created for speedy winger Scott Prince to touch down, full back Tom Finnie converting.

Maidenhead continued to run from everywhere and two more tries followed before half time. First, centre Will Thompson took advantage of another break from Prince to touch down, Finnie again converting and, on the half hour, Finnie converted his own try.

Trailing 21-5 after half an hour, Reading made a spirited response and defended well as the home side tried to exploit the wide open spaces.

However, some sloppy passing and poor decision-making from the home side against solid defence limited them to just one second half try – from a forward drive. Finnie’s conversion completed the scoring.

It was not all one-way, however, as Reading’s forwards secured their own ball well and Maidenhead had their own share of defence to do in the second half.

Reading host second-placed Newbury on Saturday (3pm), and Arter said: “It’s a different challenge, but we must look for a big result.”