BEN Wills believes his Reading RFC side are on the brink of a good run despite their heart-breaking 23-22 defeat at Reading Abbey, writes Richard Ashton.

It was a third-straight defeat for the Southern Counties North basement boys, and was all the more frustrating to Wills with the vital score coming from the final play of the game.

However, he believes there was a substantial improvement following defeats to title favourites Windsor and Marlow, and feels a momentum shift maybe on the horizon.

He told the Chronicle: "We’re two or three per cent away from decent wins and one game away from getting on a good run – it’s just about putting it all together.

"I think we have the best pack in the league. They’re not big – most teams we come up against are bigger – but they give us a really good base to build from and we’ve got a good backline – it will click one day."

Wills has his sights set not just on avoiding relegation and continued: "Realistically we want to finish top four, but we’ve got to get some momentum going if we’re going to achieve that.

"At a stretch we’d like to finish top three, but it’s such a competitive league that with the three losses we’ve now had we’re a little bit off the pace. However, it’s a long season and there’s a lot of rugby to be played."

Reflecting on the Abbey reverse, he admitted Reading only had themselves to blame, stating: “It’s frustrating, but credit to Abbey, they had to score the try (at the end) and they did. They applied the pressure and came away with it.

"We were in the lead and for the most part I thought we were the better side, but we made it difficult for ourselves and Abbey capitalised on that very well and were more clinical.

"They reacted better to things when it went wrong than we did and that was the point of difference."

He continued: "Defence has been a big issue for us this season, but I felt pretty happy we solved that. Two of their tries came from a charge-down and a kick through where a wrong bounce and maybe it isn’t a try.

"I felt they couldn’t really break us down apart from the last try, but even then that came from a penalty. "

Reading welcome Slough to Sonning Lane on Saturday and Wills is targetting a first victory.

He said: "Hopefully we can take a bit of revenge out on Slough, who I know reasonably well having coached in that division. "They’ve got a big, nasty pack and big hard runners and they’ll bring a bit of brutality to the game, but I don’t see them as a big threat.

"I think if we capitalise on everything we’ll do well. I’d back us to do the job, but we’ll have to wait and see."