Bolton Narrowly Defeat Strong Vale Team

From the start, Vale were on top as Bolton failed to shake the cobwebs from the Christmas break. Bolton were being pinned back from the Vale fly half's boot and began to feel the pressure, conceding numerous penalties. Vale attempted two long penalties converting one.

Bolton found themselves pinned into their own half struggling to retain ball in the opposition half. The Vale pressure was rewarded when their big prop crashed over from short range, the extras were added by the Vale 10. Leaving Vale 10-0 up.

As the first half drew to a close, Bolton began to find some rhythm showing some good offloading and put together some good phases even with Vale forwards constantly killing ball. A five metre scrum saw the returning Matthew Parrish pick up from 8 and go down the very narrow blind side and dive over to score his first of the season. The extras were missed by Danny Barlow.

Half Time Score 5-10.

The second half saw Bolton have the wind and sun in their favour and Alan Catterall replaced Jay Cheetham. Bolton were controlling the game and looked dangerous in open play with Regan making constant yards at outside centre. Stuart Evans came off feeling unwell replaced by Richard 'Mr Glass' Sandbrook for his first appearance of the season. Vale game plan was continually to kill ball and kick down field which they did successfully. On a couple of occasions Bolton came close to scoring with Townsend and Nick Sandbrook making noticable breaks. Only for Geoff Earle to be held up and David Ormes to knock on.

In the final 10 minutes Bolton didn't look like finding the score they needed, with some good defence from Vale. However Bolton's attack finally suceeded with Al 'The Poacher' Cath going over for his 7th try of the season, levelling the scores. Barlow held his nerve and kicked the conversion giving Bolton a 2 point lead. With 2 minutes left in the game Bolton conceded a penalty in kicking range for the Vale 10 but he didn't have the direction or distance. Bolton closed out the game winning 12-10.

Tries: Matthew Parrish, Alan Catterall

Conversions: Danny Barlow

Fraser Hart MOTM: Regan