The IX Europe Reading Kangaroos finished off the regular season against a depleted Dockers side at King's Meadow on Saturday. The boys put in a good, solid performance to confirm second spot and go into next week's play-offs as favourites to meet Nottingham in the Grand Final.

With the wind promosiing yet again to be a factor in the meetings between these two teams, the early game was quite scrappy, as both outfits struggled to find their range with early kicks. Going with the wind allowed the Roos to settle first and opened up an early lead with goals from Brent and Andy Craig, returning to the field after a lengthy absence. The Roos have missed his wrecking ball style of play in the middle and certainly enjoyed having Andy back on the park.

Every silver lining comes with a cloud, however, and the Roos did not enjoy seeing Phil limp off after coming down awkwardly on his ankle, early in the first quarter. A low scoring second quarter saw the Dockers claw back some points, but the Roos kept the early lead intact and were beginning to get into their stride, very encouraging after some of the problems of recent matches of taking a while to start. Jules was back to his best after a while out unavailable, and was dominating the ruck. Will also subbed in for a while and did well against a far more experienced Docker in the ruck, developing well in only his second full match for the club.

At half time, the Roos held a respectable lead, but once again the halftime talk largely revolved around the marking and letting the Dockers get too much space. Particularly against the wind, the Bristol lads were playing very intelligent football, kicking short to good leads and making yardage slowly and steadily, rather than pumping the ball to contests.

In the second half, Oli really started to motor and found space time and again, and distributed some great balls around the front line, which Andy Whits made full use of to notch up some more goals on top of his already impressive tally. Paul also crumbed well and was rewarded with his chasing with 2 goals, cleaning up after the ball had sailed over the leads. In the guts, Andy, Gary, Ross and Tim were battling hard and providing some great service into the front line. The backline of Tristan, Ads, Mike, Russ and Ben were rarely put under pressure and managed to restrict the Bristol scoring chances to a mere handfull throughout the 80 minutes.

The end of the match completed a solid win for the Roos. Still things which need to be worked on, particularly with regard to a possible Grand Final against a very well drilled and mobile Nottingham side, but good performances all over the park and it was great to see people like Jules and Andy Craig back in action. Another worthy mention is Andy Whits, who is challenging for a top scorer's trophy against Phil and Brent - probably the best two forwards in the regional game.

The Squad
Ads (capt), Mike, Paul, Ben, Gary, Andy Craig, Andy Whits, Jules, Phil, Ross, Will, Brent, Oli, Ian, Phil, Tim, Russ, Tristan

Outstanding Performances
Oli, Tristan, Jules, Andy Craig