Jamie Guttridge opened Rams’ account, breaking away from a forceful driving maul to touch down for an unconverted try after just 1 minute. Canterbury’s scrum half Dan Smart reduced his sides deficit with a penalty on the 5th minute, but despite 2 more Canterbury tries (both converted by Smart) before the break the 1st half belonged to Rams.
Connor Hayhow grabbed his first try of the afternoon on the 7th minute with an individual effort that saw the powerful centre sprint-in from 30 metres out, flanker Tom Vooght finished a strong Rams drive 2 minutes later and wing Jak Rossiter scored his 1st of the game on the 23rd minute when he found himself in space compliments of a nicely engineered move by fly half Alex Seers. Despite staying in the match, thanks largely to some uncharacteristic sloppy Rams work at the breakdown that led to a string of penalties for the home side, the men from Reading finished the 1st period with a 29-17 advantage thanks to a Jack Moates try on the 32nd minute.

Canterbury opened the 2nd half in lively fashion and nearly scored in the early exchanges, but hopes of a miraculous recovery and their 1st win of the season were dashed at the 53rd minute when Hayhow ran a hard-line to secure his 2nd touchdown, which was reminiscent of one of his hat-trick tries away at Rotherham 2 weeks earlier. Winger Charlie Grimes grabbed another score for Canterbury on the 66th minute but Rams extended their lead on the 73rd minute with a well taken try by Andy Humberstone, and closed the game on the 79th minute with a stunning solo effort from Rossiter who danced around tackles before crossing the whitewash.
Seb Reynolds was pleased with his side’s efforts “The players did a really good job today and bounced back well from last week’s defeat” said the Rams DoR “I think everyone expected us to win because Canterbury are struggling and have a lot of injuries, but there are no bad teams in this league and everyone watching the game could see that the moment we dropped our standards Canterbury took advantage”. Reynolds went on “but our forwards got a good platform in wet conditions and our backs were superb at taking their chances. Connor [Hayhow] was a real threat for us today and deserved his two tries and Jak’s [Rossiter] last try was sublime, his footwork to get the score was just brilliant”.
But Reynolds believes there is plenty of scope for improvement “We had a good referee today who created a fair contest at the set piece, but we didn’t help him at the breakdown and we conceded a lot of penalties in defence and that created problems for us throughout the game”.
Robbie Stapley agreed “I don’t think the forwards were at their best today and I have to put my hand up for a few of those penalties” said Rams’ captain, and went on “it’s up to me and the pack as individuals to improve for the next game”.
Rams, now 3rd in National 1, welcome league leaders Rosslyn Park to Old Bath Road this Saturday for what should be an enthralling encounter. Kick-off 2pm.