St Benedicts 39-34 Bolton RUFC

There are three points of view about Bolton’s first league game of the season away in Whitehaven against a strong St Benedicts team. Some will point out that a haul of 2 bonus points away against the recent Cumbria Cup winners is a good return against a team who have made their ground a real stronghold in recent seasons. Others will say that Bolton have not won an opening league game in recent memory so they were not expecting much from this one. Others still might be of the opinion that you could have gathered 15 strangers in the car park before the game, demonstrated rugby to them through the medium of dance and then sent them out onto the pitch in cherry and white shirts and their performance would have been no worse in the first half than the actual team’s.

Bolton committed so many collective and individual errors in the first half that there were only two positives to draw from it: the first that, even including injury stoppages, it only lasted 38 minutes and the second that there was general astonishment in the crowd that the score was only 18-0 to the home team.

Half time gave the Bolton team a chance to regroup and the coaches a chance to get their messages across. Plans of action were agreed upon and stirringly positive messages were enthusiastically delivered, so it was no surprise that St Benedicts scored again within a minute of the restart when the ball shot out of the back of a Bolton scrum and the Bennies scrum half picked up and scored under the posts whist the Bolton team watched him, the only movement being from the tumbleweeds that blew gently across the visitors’ touch in goal.

It was only then that Bolton awoke from their collective torpor and started to look like a team that is expected to challenge this season. Niall Murphy scored a couple of close range tries, the first of which he appeared to drop a couple of yards out, but which the referee awarded out of pity as much and anything and the second from a more conventional well worked lineout. In between these Matt Boyers stole a ball and ran in from half way to mark a highly promising debut. With St Benedicts tiring and disrupted by injury and a yellow card Bolton were in the ascendancy with the Louis’s Critchlow and Townsend running strongly, so it was no surprise when the home team scored a further two tries, the first through their excellent centres and then their well-drilled and highly effective pack. Bolton were, however, the fitter side and a series of tapped penalties saw Chris Mee crash over and then Will Bate score a good individual try, his first for 18 months, to finish things off.

People may look at the result and conclude that with two well fancied teams sharing 10 tries this must have been a nip and tuck thriller, but the truth is that St Benedicts were much the better team for most of the match and the final scoreline flattered Bolton.

Optimist: one of the hardest away games is out of the way early and Bolton came away with a couple of bonus points. Pessimist: if Bolton play the first half of matches like that every week then it is going to be a very long and difficult season. Bolton coaching staff: much hard work needs to be done if we are to do as well as we should and where’s my drink.

On a not entirely unrelated note Bolton RUFC had 39 players unavailable for selection this weekend and were still able to put out 4 competitive teams. For a club our size in a football heartland this is an astonishing feat and all credit must go to the players who turned out and especially to the team captains and managers who worked so hard to make this happen. We should be very proud of our club.