Wigton 3 – 10 Bolton

The romantics may be seduced by philosophies such as Kevin Keegans’s “if you score 3 we’ll score 4”, but the titles are won by “one-nil to the Arsenal” pragmatism. In rugby Saracens have even created a brand out of it and their Wolfpack defence has become a thing. At Bolton RUFC this has translated itself more into a Herd of Cats state of affairs, but Saturday’s win owed much to the collective defence of the team as they travelled by a rather circuitous route to face Wigton in a tense affair at the upper end of the league.

As the team set our from an already saturated Bolton and drove northwards through constant heavy rain their thoughts turned to recent travails on muddy wastelands, but on their arrival they found the Wigton pitch to be wet but still firm underneath. Bolton kicked off and it soon became clear that the ball would be difficult to handle as both sides made mistakes under the high ball and with ball in hand. After the visitors had absorbed the first periods of pressure from a Wigton team intent on imposing their driving maul they gained position through some clever kicking and then moved the ball quickly wide to the left where Rhys Pritchard bumped off a defender and fed Kieran Shacklock who raced clear to score. Mike Mills missed the conversion, but Bolton were soon on the attack again through strong runs from Matt Parrish, Louis Townsend and Mike Richardson. From one such thrust upfield James Singleton changed the direction of the attack and fed Will Bate who raced through a gap and found Pritchard wide on the right for the second try, which again went unconverted as a slippy surface made goal kicking difficult for both sides. At 10-0 after 25 minutes Bolton seemed in control, but the game now took on the pattern it would keep for the rest of the game: Wigton had plenty of possession through their lineout and much-improved scrum, but their driving mauls were countered well enough by Bolton and when the home team tried to move the ball through the backs they were driven back by tenacious defence. When Bolton gained possession little errors crept into their game and, not for the first time this season, their opinion of events at the breakdown and the referee’s differed. From one final penalty on the stroke of half time Wigton opted for the posts and a well struck kick made the score 10-3.

You may think that because the half time score and the final score are the same not much happened in the second half. You would be wrong. Wigton again started on the front foot using the driving maul to gain a few yards at a time and Bolton repeatedly fell foul of the referee at the breakdown to such an extent that they played for a period with 13 men as yellow cards were handed out for repeated perceived infringements. During this time, though, their defence remained resolute: Wigton continued to either drive their mauls or move the ball wide, but all their efforts washed up against Bolton’s red and white wall and came to naught. When their full complement was finally restored the visitors came back into the match, but Mills, on rare off day for him, missed a couple of penalty attempts and although Wigton were on the attack at the end Bolton’s line did not look like it would be crossed.

So a very hard fought away win for Bolton and one which keeps them in the hunt with four of their remaining five league fixtures at home. Special mention must go to the excellent hospitality shown by Wigton after the game – many thanks from all of the sizeable travelling contingent. Representatives from Aspatria took a DVD of the game back to Bower Park, but would have learned little on a day when defence won the day. It will be different next week.

MoM – Ash Cooper who led the defensive effort.