Away Day Gremlins Strike Again

While Bolton awaited confirmation that they had a game to go to the usual rugby club frivolity bounced around, with Jay ‘vodka thief’ Cheetham enjoying his suspiciously lager looking protein shake, captain Nick ‘I finally thought I’d show up for a second team fixture’ Sandbrook making his weekly attempt to hijack the pie van while alleged thinner twin Rick ‘cant pass, wont pass’ Sandbrook made the bizarre decision to remove one of his car doors.

With confirmation arriving Bolton headed out on the short hop across to Sedgley a little prop heavy (even with the disappearance of JP) but with just about a full side. The runners and riders then as several players made a new year reappearance after several weeks if not months on the sidelines, James Brodie stepping in at number 8, Matt Vickers into the centers and Manny Tailor taking a seat on the bench. Also welcomed was Michael ‘Rabbi Mick’ Sethna who started in the second row for his second team debut. For a moment it looked like another return was due as chubby crock captain Nick ‘all dressed up with nowhere to go to’ Sandbrook was seen to pull on a shirt yet it would appear this was solely to keep himself warm while carrying the water.

After a jovial warm up and having won the toss so that they wouldn’t have to deal with the dazzling sun until the second half it was Bolton who started on the back foot as a combination of Sedgleys strong rucking and heads not yet being on saw them pinned back in their own 22. However defensively Bolton were switched on and looking strong, James Brodie leading the way in the tackle count, and were holding Sedge at bay until a stupid penalty and even stupider 10 yards were conceded, putting Sedge in range for a penalty which they gleefully took. Now it would be wrong to apportion blame for this, and I’m not exactly sure who did pipe up and cost the 10 yards but I’m not a particularly fair person so I’m going to blame someone anyways. Using my best CSI skills, considering prior form for this sort of thing and the games penalty count, it would seem that after a dormant few weeks David ‘penalty machine’ Ormes is back in business.

Although Bolton’s defensive work ethic continued they struggled to get a handle on things at the ruck and began to misfire at the line out as well, while a front row of Chris ‘Brocky’ Turner, Mark Crow and Ian Morton generally dominated in the scrum giving James ‘get used to this name’ Brodie a good platform to make yards all game long. For the opening 20 though Sedge remained on top and took good advantage of any Bolton mistakes adding 2 more penalties to the tally and heading off into a 9-0 lead.

Although leaking penalties Bolton were visibly buoyed by the defensive display and decided to switch on with ball in hand and look to play some rugby. The back row where that keen to get going that at one point James Brodie was seen to ruck out his own man Pete Brogan who was in the act of turning ball over so that he could steal the ball instead. Brogans luck didn’t improve either as a yellow card would soon follow for him having the temerity to decide not to throw a punch in retaliation during a scuffle.

For the remaining 20 minutes Bolton finally spent some time in the Sedge half of the pitch as the pack booted up a strong running off load game and the backs looked to spread the ball wide. However despite going close a few times Bolton couldn’t make it across the whitewash, a contributing factor perhaps being the liberal application of the offside rule by the man in the middle. The man to perhaps go closest was center Matt ‘If at first you don’t succeed try the intercept all day and fail again’ Vickers, who snaffling an interception looked to be away only for the ensuing final pass to be intercepted in turn by a member of the Sedgley back three.

H/T 9 – 0

The second half was more of the same unfortunately for Bolton as they could only string together phases with ball in hand in fits and starts. And again found themselves pinned deep in their own half, this time with the sun in eye problem to contend with as well. Again defensively Bolton looked to be holding firm with a strong goal line defence, even Peter ‘that’s 2-0’ Marriott was seen to wade in with a few tackles.

Bolton sensed it was time to bring on the reinforcements and turned to the speedsters with Dave ‘don’t make me prop’ Evans and Manny Tailor both coming on at prop in place of Ian Morton and the walking penalty machine himself Dave Ormes. As much as this livened up things in the scrum and each got a few carries it didn’t have the game changing effect required.

With close to ten minutes to go Bolton’s defence finally gave way, as Sedge exploited an exposed blind side to touch down in the corner. The conversion was missed giving Bolton the faint hope of a comeback, they pushed both getting into Sedge territory and then for the tryline a flowing offloading move nearly sending them under the sticks for a try but again the final ball went awry Manny Tailor unable to gather to touch down. From the resultant scrum last play was called and although Bolton turned over the ball in hunt of a consolation effort again a handling error would cost them the chance.

F/T 14 – 0

Fraser Hart MOM – James Brodie

The Thought better of it Award for being about to start something you couldn’t finish, realising this and just throwing the ball down in a huff instead – Robert Terry. Also, Robert has asked that as a club we make the effort to address him as Robert from now on. He apparently hates being called Rob/Terry.

The stop doing that Award for continuous stupidity – Dave Ormes is a shoe in for this surely… - No, its still Tom Relph for continually bouncing rugby balls off of his face.

The Early Bird Award for warming up far too early – No this isn’t the National League One teams who were also playing at Sedgley on the day – Bolton 1st Team.