TROWBRIDGE suffered a setback in their bid to move clear of the bottom of South West One East as they were well beaten at fellow strugglers Reading.

With the visitors hit by unavailability, it was after only five minutes that the home side broke through to send left wing Chris Crieg in from 40 metres.

Tom Weaver responded with a penalty for Trowbridge but two Matt Smart kicks nudged Reading 11-3 clear.

Crieg went get through poor defence to score his second try but the best try of the first half came from Trowbridge youngster Gareth Davis going over out wide with a spectacular forward roll before touching down.

After the break Reading right wing Ben Mitchell rounded the visitors' backs to score under the posts giving Smart an easy conversion and their next score came from hooker Alex Wilson.

Smart converted before centre Dan Witko benefited from the bounce of the ball to go under the posts, Smart rounding things off with another conversion.