Three tries in the second half gave Reading a third victory in a row, and a fifth win in their last seven Southern Counties North games, with a 22-16 success at Wallingford.

In a game in which Wallingford had pegged back Reading’s early lead, Reading’s second half dominance saw them home.

The Reading team had the luxury of only two changes with Andy Parr returning in the second row and Nick Burch at scrum-half.

They also welcomed back the influential Rob Cunningham to the replacements bench.

The first half, which was played in greasy conditions following a cloudburst just after the kick off, was an evenly-matched affair.

Both defences were on top for the first half hour with Reading having the better of the exchanges without penetrating the Wallingford defence.

Reading took the lead just after the half-hour mark with an unconverted try in the corner from Will Proctor Searle, who won the race to the line after a clever kick through by Grant Spears.

Wallingford came back in the last five minutes of the half and following a driving line-out which made some meaningful ground, followed by a number of phases of possession, scored a converted try under the posts.

The visitors then sent the restart dead and as a result were forced back into their own half, and Wallingford after a series of attacking phases forced a penalty in front of the posts to give them a half-time lead of 10-5.

Reading were the first to score after the break, when, after the forwards made good ground, the ball was moved quickly out to the wing and Proctor Searle was put clear to cross in the corner for his second try to level the scores.

Wallingford fought back and kicked a penalty to make it 13-10, but from this point Reading slowly began to dominate possession and territory and got their reward when Alex Watson crossed for an unconverted try from a driving maul.

Reading stretched their lead with a try from Chris Greig when a good passing move still left him with some work to do.

This he did in fine style beating his man and swerving inside the full-back to cross under the posts.

Burch added the extras to put Reading 22-13 ahead, and despite a late penalty from Wallingford, the away side held on.

Reading coach Ben Wills was pleased with the victory and praised the tactical awareness of the team, who played the weather conditions well and had the better kicking game.

He singled out Cunningham, who came on at half time and made a big difference in terms of generating forward momentum, and Alex Murray Smith, who had controlled the game well.