MATCH REPORT: DEADLY DEC FIRES DRAGON'S TEETH PAST ABBEY

A DECLAN O’Riley hat-trick helped the Dragon’s Teeth maintain their perfect Counties Three Tribute Berks, Bucks & Oxon South start to the season with a dominant 62-19 derby triumph at Reading Abbey.

Under a sunny sky and cool breeze, RAMS were sharp from the start and opened the scoring through O’Riley after nine minutes, the extras added by James Dias.

From the resulting kick-off a lovely display of soft-handed passing from the forwards, and clean breaks from Roddy Clark and Tom Burrows, saw the visitors go straight under the posts to stretch their lead to 14 points.

However, the early scores stung Abbey into action as they sent their huge pack in waves at the Rams defence, resulting in a converted try for the home side.

The recovery was short lived, though, as the DTs continued to exert pressure and grabbed a third score, again converted by Dias for 21-7 at the interval.

Early in the second half, man-of-the-match Chris Kessell produced the play of the day, ripping the ball clean from an Abbey maul and showing a clean pair of heels to the halfway line before sending a beautiful grubber beyond the defence.

Will Young sprinted, gathered and off-loaded superbly to Bleddyn Parry in support for another – and brilliant – converted score.

The away side had the momentum and from the subsequent kick off, Parry collected the ball and with deft footwork beat the defence, excellent offloading ending with Young crossing under the posts.

The huge Abbey pack were visibly tiring and stand-off Jacob Orbell then stepped the defence, offloading to half-back Paul Wintersgill who gave a simple pass to captain Rupert Erskine for another 50-metre try.

Any signs of Abbey capitulating were brushed aside as a series of powerful runs from the home forwards saw RAMS giving away cheap penalties as the defence was put firmly into reverse.

And eventually the pressure told, Abbey scoring twice from surging forward drives.

However, Rams made a couple of changes, adding huge experience to both forwards and backs as they finished the game with a flourish, O’Riley completing a treble and Orbell dancing through the tiring defence through for the final score and a third consecutive high-scoring victory.

The table-topping DTs do not have a game this weekend, returning to action for their first Friday Night Lights game of the season in the derby at Reading 3rd XV on October 14.