Hungerford and Reading get together for Veterans match in West Berkshire

Hungerford played their first Veterans game for over six years when they hosted Reading Rhinos under the floodlights on Friday night, coming out 33-19 winners.

The game kicked off with the Rhinos getting the upper hand and it was not long before they took the lead when their forwards made good ground from a line out, which resulted in their flanker crossing for the opening try under the posts.

Hungerford took time to get into the game as old combinations re-acquainted themselves with each other.

However, they were level when winger Ian Alexander chased down a bouncing ball from a kick, to chip the ball towards the try line and over for a score.

The Hungerford forwards started to get on top with Wayne Shaw and Dominic French Davies rolling back the years with their prowess in the scrums.

Another solid scrum enabled Andy Sparkes to feed out quickly where Mark Bolton took on his opposing number and powerfully cut through the defence and ran a fully 60metres before sending in Dave Cree to which he added the extras via the conversion.

The half time whistle sounded with the scores at 14-7 to Hungerford.

The second half saw Hungerford continue in the vein they left off in the first half, when the newly introduced Mark Bloomfield won the ball on the Rhinos 10m line.

From there, Ant Cope beat a couple of men before finding Cree who then sent the ball wide to Alexander to score.

Rhinos hit back when a lovely break out of the fence saw their winger outpace the cover defence and cross the line.

Hungerford soon responded again this time with Mark Boulton and Sam Houghton working some lovely lines with the midfield before feeding onto Cree who cut back inside and sprinted under the posts for his second try of the night.

Rhinos added a further long range try with 10 minutes to go.

Hungerford scored their final tray when Dan Holley got through the middle before goose-stepping the fullback to cross over and secure the win.