Adam Le Fondre's effort on the stroke of half time ensured that Wanderers took a deserved share of the spoils away from the Madejski Stadium on Tuesday evening.
Mo Barrow had opened the scoring for Reading with an angled effort, but Le Fondre's leveller saw the Whites head back home with a point to their name from a tightly contested encounter.
And speaking after the final whistle, manager Phil Parkinson covered the following points...
On his side’s performance…
I think we should have won the game. We had a lot of chances before they scored and the goal was against the run of play.
I think it knocked us for five or ten minutes but then we got the goal before half-time. It’s what our first half performance warranted.
We always felt there was a possibility that we could tire as a team because we’re getting players fit in the first team, like Jan and Jon Flanagan.
Having said that, we started really brightly in the second half and it was a game we probably should have won, but it was a good response after losing on Saturday.
On making changes to his side…
There’s always an element of risk when you make seven changes but I thought the balance of the team was good tonight.
There were some decent performances and we can take a lot of heart from it. Reading are fighting for their lives.
They changed their style a little bit and went a bit more direct but they still have some very talented players and always pose a threat on the break. All in all, we performed very well tonight.
On Adam Le Fondre…
Alfie was tremendous tonight, and him and Darren complemented each other really well.
Darren gave us a bit of physicality up there by winning his headers and getting hold of the ball, but they both looked decent up there.
On the performance of Darren Pratley in the No.10 role…
Darren covers every blade of grass and he’s played that role before when he was at Swansea, so we knew he could do it.
We spent a bit of time on the way down here looking at games where he’d played there and it just gives us a focal point as well.
He did however do very well there tonight.
On Jan Kirchhoff and Jon Flanagan’s first starts…
They’re both quality players and they just give the team another dimension in terms of that calmness in possession.
We knew with the way that Reading play that they can leave themselves exposed and getting that first pass away which we did at times, when we were in on goal, they added something to the team tonight.
And finally, on Sheffield Wednesday away next up…
We knew this was a big week and we’ve started reasonably well, but now we have to go and build on it at Hillsborough at the weekend.