Senior Colts win on the road!

Bolton U19’s played their first game in a few weeks away against fellow Divisional strugglers Burnley. Preparation this week had included members of the squad helping out at Bolton Beer Festival, cancelled training and an 18th Birthday ‘event’ on the Saturday night beforehand. It was with some management trepidation that the squad assembled on the Sunday morning for the trip north, but amazingly all who had confirmed appeared; including the birthday boy last seen by his Coach crawling up the stairs into the Club late the night before!

The game commenced with reduced numbers as Burnley only had 13 players available to play at this point, so Bolton had 14 on the pitch and the luxury of 2 subs! From the off, Bolton received and worked the ball down the pitch and into the hands of Gaz Farmer who scythed his way through the Burnley defence for the first score, which was converted. The next twenty minutes consisted of a lot of penalties both ways as the teams worked hard in the contact areas, resulting in occasional hand-bag swinging and lack of discipline retreating. Eventually, after calming words from Captain Kelly the Bolton squad settled down and got on with it. The result, three tries before the half way mark from; birthday boy Matty Almond, Ali Fresher and an 80yd run from Liam Hampson to leave it at 24 – 0 to Bolton. Unfortunately half time came at the point one of the Burnley players went down injured in a heavy tackle and had to be stretchered off; later going to hospital.

The second half was more disjointed as adjustments were made to player numbers on the pitch to accommodate Burnley injuries. Bolton scored early through the other Fresher twin Ben, before Burnley worked a good overlap across the pitch to score and then convert. This spurred Burnley on and a good passage of play from them saw Bolton saving themselves from the brink a couple of times as well as the home team spilling over the line twice. The last 10 mins saw Bolton get their heads back on again and second tries for Matty and Ali came before the end to leave the final score 39-7 to Bolton; despite a valiant debut conversion attempt from Sam Kelly – that nearly got above waist height! 

Burnley U19s deserve recognition for sticking at it throughout; those of us in the lower reaches all know what it is like to struggle with player numbers. Their injured player has broken his collar bone and has the Bolton Squad’s best wishes for a speedy recovery.