Rams bounced back from a disappointing second half collapse in their opening league fixture away to Henley to grab a bonus point win over a lively London Irish team.

The Rams scrum was at its destructive best and accounted for two penalty tries in the game (that makes our scrum one of the league’s top try scorers as it also secured a try on the opening day of the season - well done forwards) one in each half. A debut try from new prop Andy Berry and touch downs from Tom Vooght, Greg Illingworth, and a brilliantly executed final try from the flying Joe Duffelen, to seal a wonderful move from Rams backs, secured the 44-16 victory. That was more than the home side may have hoped for as a superb solo performance from Irish’s fly-half Peter Hodgkinson, who scored all 16 of the men in green’s points, kept his team in the game right up to the break. But despite all his skills and endeavours, even the heroic Hodgkinson, ably assisted by his talented outside centre Ben Kitching, could not resist the relentless onslaught from a powerful Reading Rams performance. It made a difficult return to his old club for Wild Geese’s scrum half Chicco U’Chong, who spent most of the afternoon clearing balls from the feet of his retreating forwards. Given these difficulties, Chicco deserves great credit (and it was nice to see him and “Chongie” – his dad – back at Old Bath Rd – they are great friends of our club and always will be).

And whilst talking about returning friends. Jake Atkins was conspicuous among the home supporters, and in the changing room afterwards. Jake is doing really well at London Irish and will be playing lots of “A” fixtures this year, and who knows, perhaps even pulling on a LI shirt for a Premiership debut, let’s hope so as our ex fly-half shows an abundance of skills and a cool head. Jake’s were difficult boots to fill, which is why our new 10, Tom Humberstone, faced a tough challenge in his first year with us. He has responded magnificently and has quickly formed a solid relationship with his scrum-halves, as Greg Illingworth will testify after helping himself to a touch-down under the posts on Saturday, courtesy of a nice break from Tom. Keep up the good works guys.

Our Titans squad took on London Irish 2's and demonstrated the depth in the Rams squad with a 69 - 0 win.

We travel to Worthing Raiders on Saturday, and we hope to do a bit of Ram Raiding ourselves, but it’s going to be a tough fixture as the Sussex side are flying high at the top of N2 at present with bonus point wins in their two opening games. I am hoping that lots of you will “Follow The Rams” down to the south coast and cheer the boys on. Worthing are a great club, very hospitable but tough on the pitch. What better way can you find to spend a Saturday afternoon?