December was a strange month. We had three fixtures and lost our unbeaten home run to Oldham following a disappointing result at Littleborough the weekend before. This meant we travelled to Trafford MV in desperate need of a win. Despite scoring less tries than our opposition, we ran out eventual winners before rounding out the year with an 18-18 draw at Avenue Street against Fleetwood.

In November I was asked to put forward names of players to trial for Lancashire Royals (which is a new representative team for players at levels 5 to 8). I put forward Rhys Pritchard, Louis Critchlow and Ash Cooper. All three attended the trials and both Rhys and Louis were selected in the starting line up for the Royals. Ash, unfortunately didn’t make it but had been asked to trial at No. 8 rather than his preferred position of Blindside Flanker.

The inaugural fixture for the Royals was against the Anti-Assassins at Preston Grasshoppers on Tuesday 27th December. Rhys and Louis both played well on the day and made good accounts of themselves with Rhys picking up the final try of the match. To have our club represented at this level is a fantastic result for Bolton and we hope that this continues. Both Ash and Tony McLoughlin were invited to represent the opposition, The Anti-Assassins, and both made appearances from the bench for a side that boasted a number of National Level players. All four players are a credit to the club and thoroughly deserve our warmest congratulations. Well done!

There will be some hard matches to play in January starting with a home fixture against Upper Eden. Training will begin on Tuesday 3rd January at Ladybridge - I hope to see as many of the players there as possible. Mike is ready for you, to help you lose some of that extra muscle you put on over the Christmas period!!

Mike and I are really looking forward to 2017 when we hope we will play some great rugby whilst enjoying ourselves at the same time.