Whitehaven 12 – 31 Bolton

You are far too young to remember, gentle reader, but in the days before the Leagues were introduced rugby was a much simpler sport: you played the nearest dozen or so teams to you and on those weekends when you didn’t have a game you went into the fixture pool and ended up playing either the Dog & Duck third XV or Sale. You still might have had to work on a Saturday morning, but because no match was more than half an hour’s drive away and the warm-up consisted of a couple of half-hearted stretches and a cigarette you could always get there for kick off. There were no physios to tell you that you were injured so with a bit of deep heat and some grubby tubigrip you were good to go. Holidays and weddings happened exclusively in the summer and stag does involved no more than a few beers in the pub closest to the church on the Friday night before the happy event. In the same way that maps used to be 2/3rds pink to mark the extent of the British Empire, the months from September to April on the calendar were marked ‘RUGBY’ and unchallengeable.

The young players of today – all of Bolton’s team except Taff Evans fall into this category – face more distractions and have greater calls on their time than ever before and it is becoming increasingly hard to put a team together, especially for a trip that takes up all of Saturday. The words “Bolton name an unchanged lineup” have never appeared on the club’s website, so it was business as usual as Bolton travelled to Whitehaven with the usual five changes in the pack and hookers and flankers in the back line. When the referee was giving his pre-match talk and asked “and who is the scrum half?” everyone looked around anxiously, fearing the coaches might have overlooked this one small detail.

Whitehaven kicked off with the breeze behind them on a fine and sunny afternoon, but it was Bolton who started the stronger and the visitors were soon threatening the home line. The forwards’ initial attempts were halted just short, but Matt Parrish plunged over from the back of a dominant scrum to open the scoring after 10 minutes. With Bolton’s three goal kickers unavailable ,auditions had been held before the game and to everyone’s – including his own – surprise Kieran Shacklock had been the person most likely. He stepped up and slotted a tricky conversion in the manner born to stun the travelling support. Bolton didn’t let off, however and the visitors kept the pressure on Whitehaven: Louis Critchlow, Niall Murphy, Parrish and Tony McLaughlin, playing his first 1st team match after a year out following knee surgery, all ran strongly and punched holes in the home defence and Jack Robinson who eventually remembered he was scrum half for the day darted round the side of the breakdown to good effect. From one such foray upfield the ball was moved quickly left to Shacklock who showed good speed to outpace the defence and score in the corner. Bolton were into their stride now and more pressure forced a penalty in midfield. Alex Waddicar put an excellent ball into the corner and Louis Critchlow reached over from the resulting maul. From the kick off Bolton put together their best passage of rugby of the afternoon when Critchlow made the initial break and excellent handling put Joe Smith away; he beat the last defender to score and give Bolton the try bonus point before the half hour. Shacklock added the conversion.

So 24-0 to the visitors at half time, but Whitehaven started the second half the better side and scored a good try following a strong run by the left winger. Bolton were still creating opportunities, but failed to convert them due to some poor decision making and a lack of accuracy in the opposition 22. Both sides were disrupted by yellow cards and the visitors tired, but were unable to freshen things up due to a lack of replacements. They scored again when a clearing kick by Whitehaven failed to find touch and Joe Smith gathered and beat several defenders on his way to the posts. All he had to do was fall over the try line, but he succumbed to the siren voice of Manny Tailor on his shoulder and passed to the prop who ran 27cm to score. Shacklock converted again and although Whitehaven to their credit came back strongly to score a converted try on the final whistle the result had never really been in doubt from half way through the first half.

A job well done for Bolton who, especially in the first half, played some good stuff and overcame a spirited Whitehaven effort. The 5 point haul keeps them in the hunt as the season heads into the home straight.

MoM – Joe Smith, who won it from Kieran Shacklock in a fair contest.