Brame's inspiration!

The 6ft 4in guard and co-captain revelled in his man-marking role by sitting on Reading's new scoring mainstay, American shooting-guard Mike Williamson, with psychological help from Janis Ivanovskis.

And coach Gary Smith ran the bench rotations effectively to draw first blood between the teams.

Neither will win the BBL Trophy '” both are makeweight guests from the flight below '” but Reading's rebuilding includes three 6ft 9in forwards or centres around 7ft centre James Cook.

This on Saturday was possible to compare with re-shaped Worthing's two new 6ft 8in threats, American Hank Rivers and Latvian Ivanovskis, and their incoming British 6ft 5in men Roderick Wellington, Daniel Midgley and Ryan Marrist, around top homegrown 6ft 9in centre Pat Bates.

For full report, see this week's Worthing Herald.