The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

Finding out your original fixture is cancelled and a large percentage of the Bolton squad away for half term, we looked for a “development” game. A quick turn around by players and parents was need to answer the kind invitation from Vale of Lune and for a tri way with Fleetwood.

Vale played Fleetwood whilst our lads had there usual soporific warm-up, with coaches wondering how best to motivate the team. First game was against Vale who we have played before. We had no idea how we would play against Vale only knowing our lads were either playing out of position or were considered as “development”. No longer can we class any of our players as “developmental”. Straight from the whistle Bolton made its mark with a try from Sean Carragher who received the kick off and decided to run through the defence taking 3 or four Vale players with him.

The conditions were heavy and we wondered if we would get the chance to open up our back line for a run or two. The controlled distribution from the set piece saw Al Harris as scrum half take control, seeing excellent distribution to Owen (Captain) at 10. The recently formed partnership of Myles Garth and Seb Donnely saw our open play in mid field present Myles with two opportunities to score two tries in quick succession.

Making small but positive hard yards was the role of the tight five and they did this phase after phase, keeping their play simple yet effective. Getting the opponents to commit players to the breakdown and attacking the gap at pace with aggression gave Sean Carragher the perfect platform for a further two tries.

Final score Vale of Lune 10 - Bolton 27

Observing Fleetwood the coaches noticed a style of play that meant we would have to adapt and do this quickly. A quick “chat” with our players saw them face a very large Fleetwood squad.

Even though the conditions did not favour fast running we decided to move the ball quickly amongst our backline. Handling skills have improved and this was evident as both our wingers, Oliver Carbery and Joel Matthews had great runs. A few scragg tackles on Joel only seemed to make him more determined to split the Fleetwood defence.

Fleetwood decided we must have a weakness in our back three as they launched high kick after high kick direct to George Johnson at fullback. George read the game well and replied with some strong direct runs not afraid to mix it up with the large Fleetwood players.

Again our scrum held up against a larger Fleetwood scrum and quick and decisive decision making by Al Harris gave an opportunity for Seb Donnelly to have a lone run right through the oppositions defence. Fleetwood came back hard at Bolton and spent far too much time on our try line. Strong defence from Bolton and not wishing to shown the way by Seb Donnelly, Myles Garth was offered a turnover ball by Ethan Greenwood and Myles decided to run the whole length of the pitch with a Fleetwood player on his heels before scoring a further try.

The forwards’ heads’ were well and truly up and Piers Skeels-Coldwell was once active in cleaning up the ball. Broken play gave Oliver McKeown the opportunity to grubber the ball through the defence, controlling his kick all the way to the try line before deciding to do an Ash splash and not grounding the ball. With only a few minutes left to play a quick ball off the top of our line out saw Bolton back in Fleetwoods half. More broken play saw James Sharples exploit an undefended blindside where he “casually” decided to score in the corner.

With no substitutions and back to back games we can no longer call these boys a “development” side. Each and every player today earned the right to play Rugby for Bolton U13s.

Man of the match: Joel

Final score Fleetwood 5 Bolton 38