100% Effort

Bolton under 9's made the short journey to Eccles today.

Bolton know Eccles are hard to beat, but pulled a performance out of the bag.

A new tactic was used today by giving certain players a position to try to encourage a more passing game. Noah Greenwood and Elliott Whittle was asked to play the number 10 role between them.

The new tactic worked well with the first try to bolton with a darting run through Callum Purnell. Another try from Callum came after some good strong defensive work by Eccles making it very difficult for Bolton to make any ground.

A bit of a stale mate ensued with both teams going through several phases of play, only to knock on at the crucial moment.

Eccles moved the ball very efficiently managing to reply with 3 tries, despite some heavy tacking from the bolton pack.

Half time Eccles 3 bolton 2.

The players was reminded at half time that the same 3 or 4 players could not be relied on to perform the defensive duties, and to get in the game offensively they needed to be there in support.

The boys rallied after half time a stepped up a gear both in attack and defence. Robert Jones Grady, Finlay Rennie and Matthew Phillips putting in several hard tackles. Joe Robinson , Luke Parry helping drive the ball forward.

4 more tries from Callum Purnell, Drew Armistead, Louis Ramm, and a determined effort from Finlay Rennie to drive the ball over the line saw bolton run out 6-5 winners.

Both parents and coaches commented on what a good game of rugby it was to watch, with excellent play from both teams.

100% effort from all 11 players today and Man of the match could have gone to anyone of them.

In the end Drew Armistead was given the accolade today.