READING were unfortunate to lose their Southern Counties North home clash 23-22 to Aylesbury in a game in which they outscored their opponents by four tries to two.

Starring for the hosts once again was wing Chris Greig, whose two second-half tries kept his side in with the prospect of victory.

The first came after the visitors had kicked the ball out of defence, with No. 8 Rob Cunningham driving back up-field and passing to Gavin Egan whose slick pass set Greig away.

Greig still had much to do, but his combination of speed and elusive running took him clear for a score under the posts.

His other try came from a scrum on the visitors’ 10-metre line, scrum-half Juillaume Janin passing direct to Greig for another fine try from distance.

These tries gave Reading a 22-10 lead with half-an-hour to go, but Aylesbury, to their credit, kept going well and a converted try plus two penalty goals gave them their narrow win.

Earlier in the game Reading had had the better of much of the first half and scored their first try within five minutes of the start, flanker Egan touching down following a line-out catch-and-drive from five metres.

The visitors came back with some threatening moves, but good Reading defence plus Aylesbury mistakes kept them from scoring.

It was Reading who scored next, after 25 minutes, when a well-placed high kick from Alex Dorliac was tapped down behind his own line by the Aylesbury winger and substitute Ollie O’Toole pounced to score.

Both the first half tries were scored wide out, making the conversions difficult, but Greig’s two in the second half were both under the posts and unfortunately for the hosts, one of these was missed and this affected the final score.

Reading can, nevertheless, take a lot from a game which could have gone either way.

Ably led by second row Andy Parr, the team played with great spirit.

The scrummaging and line-out play both went well and Cunningham led the way with some great driving play.

Dorliac, playing his 200th game for the team in his 11th season at the club, had to play out of position at fly-half and did so very well.

In the backs, centres Grant Spears and George Dear both made line-breaking runs and Stuart Borthwick had a fine game at full-back in just his second game of the season for the club.