Reading YMCA Rapids guaranteed themselves 4th place after a classy performance against 2nd place Berinsfield Res.

The Rapids started the game confidently had created several chances with Lee Worth, Chris Lemm and Dan Sutton all going close.  And it was Lemm who broke the deadlock when he squeezed a left foot shot into the bottom corner on 20 minutes.  Lemm then turned provider when his cross deceived the Berinsfield defence and goalkeeper allowing Worth to volley home in clinical fashion.

The Rapids defence was looking comfortable with Ben Green and Carl Tipper in top form and Berinsfield were restricted to a few half chances.  But just before half-time a misplaced pass by the Rapids allowed Berinsfield to counterattack and their striker was played in on goal where he slotted the ball past keeper Ian Harvey into the bottom corner.

Rapids boss Paul O'Boyle brought on Dean Williams at the start of the second half and it proved to be a masterstroke when he raced on to a deflected Lemm pass to sidefoot in with his first touch of the game.

Berinsfield continued to look lethargic whilst the Rapids looked bright and lively in possession and a 4th goal duly arrived when a long Harvey goal kick was met by striker Steve Woodrow who lobbed the ball over the advancing keeper.

Delighted Rapids boss O'Boyle said "This was a great performance to finish the season with and we played some excellent football at times.
Berinsfield Res are a top side but they probably had one eye on their cup semi-final next week and we took advantage and fully deserved our win.

A 4th place finish in our first season together is a great achievement in what is a really tough league.  The top 5 in our league are probably all capable of playing in Div 2 at least and I'm hoping that the league will look at the obvious disparity between some of the teams this year and elevate us into a higher division where we can have competitive games every week."

READING YMCA RAPIDS: HARVEY, SANIGAR (replaced by TOWNER 45mins), B GREEN, C TIPPER, ILSLEY (replaced by CALLOW 65mins), SUTTON (replaced by WILLIAMS 45mins), R TIPPER, BULLETT, C LEMM, WORTH, WOODROW SUBS TOWNER, WILLIAMS, CALLOW.

BOILER'S MAN OF THE MATCH - BEN GREEN

Drew Tipper took his 2nd MOM in a row with a great display in the cup loss to Shinfield. Tippers form has been both sparkling and consistent all season and its no surprise he leads the scoring, mom and assist charts for the entie club.