Bolton made the long trip to Southport for their second away fixture of the season. After the narrow defeat the week before Bolton were fired up for a tough game ahead, held at Southport's home ground.

The game was underway with Bolton’s kick-off. Bolton began with an assertive display, quickly putting pressure on the home side’s attack. At the 10 minute mark Southport had a line out on Bolton’s 5 metre line with the game still scoreless Southport were looking to get some points on the board. Southport’s hooker overthrew the ball and Dan Southworth, Bolton’s 6, attempted to gather the overthrow but was impeded accidentally by the referee, leading to Southport claiming the ball on the run and beating a tackle to score the first points of the game, the referee went on to apologise before the restart.

Bolton struggled to find their attacking rhythm, largely due to successive handling errors and so were without the ball for much of the first half. Bolton tried to continue the strong defence, which they showed in the first 20 minutes, but gaps began to appear and Southport took advantage by reversing the flow of attack and converting a simple 5 v 2 to place the ball over the try line. After a strong attack presented by Bolton in an attempt to get back into the game, Southport’s 13 shot out the line and slapped the ball on the floor in an ‘attempt’ for an interception which left Bolton being awarded a 5 metre penalty with no cards shown. A quick tap from Ross Hayden passed the ball wide to Josh Holmes who slipped through Southport’s defence, and with a dummy beat the last defender to score.

After strong words at half time from the coaching team the second half began. Bolton needed to remain strong in defence and start to execute their attacks. After multiple phases and some resolute Southport defence the Bolton forwards started tiring, a quick turnover and kick downfield from Southport found them with a scrum on Bolton’s 22. After relentless defence from the backs a penalty was awarded, and Southport ran down the blind side finding gaps which extended their lead. Bolton then rallied together in one last attempt to salvage this game. In the 65th minute, Bolton were on the attack and Dan Aspinall (pictured) found himself at first receiver, he fired a miss pass to Josh Holmes to make another break down the left wing creating space for Bolton’s left winger Ryan McClusky to score another try.

In the last few minutes of the game, Bolton attempted to narrow Southport’s lead as much as possible with a few pick and go’s from the forwards along with short crash balls off the scrum-half. Paul Leigh got agonisingly close to the try line, before the referee perceived the clear rip by Southport as a knock on, resulting in a Southport scrum. Despite pressure from the Bolton pack, the ball found its way to the back of the Southport scrum and their 9 kicked the ball out to end the game.

A tough away fixture for Bolton resulted in a 38-17 defeat with all round improvement needed for the team. There are still some positives to take away from the game and some work ons before the first home game of the season next week. Milo Holmes made his first appearance at fullback and had a stellar game. Jonny Wallis our captain rallied his pack in the second half through strong carries alongside flaker Tom Platt.

Josh Bentley-Hughes, making his first team debut, was awarded MotM for his extremely positive performance in both attack and defence.