Reading's first away victory of this season's Division One campaign was sweet revenge, against a side that were responsible for putting Reading's rise to Division One off for a season. The last time the two sides met was in the Second Division play-off final, two seasons ago, which saw Walsall take the place into Division One at Reading's expense. Today the game again threatened to swing either way - but this time it was Reading that gradually gained the edge and came away with the victory - making it nine points from six Division One matches. After the mid-week home win over Burnley, this result was a real bonus for the Royals, who have officially now made an excellent start to the season by leaping into the top ten.

The first half was a half of few chances for either side with Walsall perhaps having slightly more of the play, but not creating many clear cut chances. Walsall managed to put the ball in the net once but the goal was correctly ruled out for offside. Other than that the home side only really looked likely to score when there was a mix-up in the Reading defence. There were a few occassions when we looked shakey at the back, but generally we kept it tight. Hahnemann, continuing in goal in place of the out-of-favour Phil Whitehead, was wide awake to clear up a couple of problems when the defence failed to clear. Down the other end top-scorer Jamie Cureton had Reading's best chances and so nearly put Reading ahead before the break. Cureton had a good free kick that was heading in on target and required the Walsall keeper to get down quickly to make the save. Jamie could have prodded another chance home after Butler and Hughes did the work and Hughes' cross found Cureton in the middle, however a last gap tackle prevented Cureton from sticking it home.

There had been bright spells for both sides during the opening 45 minutes but Walsall looked slightly more comfortable on the ball. Reading had played a couple too many long balls and looked best when the ball was played forward on the crowd - with Forster looking dangerous down the right. After the break Reading seemed to pull their game together a bit more and emerged as the stronger looking of the two sides. A good spell of possession football from the Royals could have seen us go ahead with Butler having a couple of chances that game to nothing. After Reading failed to take the lead Walsall had perhaps their best five minute spell of the game mid-way through the half with Hahnemann claiming a couple of dangerous crosses and making a point-blank save after a close range header on target.

Reading eventually took the lead after a Walsall attack. Hughes had been guilty of a couple of terrible passes just moments ago but created and scored the goal after taking the ball out of the Reading defence and running through the middle before supplying Salako. Salako legged it down the wing and crossed to the middle, where Hughes had kept up and got on the end of it to volley it into the ground sending the ball bouncing up and into the back of the net. 1-0 to the Royals. With the pace of the game picking up all the time both sides could have scored before Reading sealed the victory. Once again Salako did the job down the left and crossed again to Hughes who was more than delighted to score his second of the game to put Reading 2-0 up. With Hughes having one of the best spells of his Reading career perhaps, he could have made it three after surging forward, but got caught in two minds and failed to either shoot or lay the ball off to Butler. But it didn't matter - Hughes' two goals had won the game and propelled the Royals up the table.
Graham