With silly hats at the ready, a beer festival to look forward to and JP ‘puppet master‘ Hardman having opened a car boot sale in the clubhouse pre match it was as always an interesting start to the day.
Player rotation was as always in full swing as Bolton even managed to have a full bench, Bolton welcomed back Marathon Man Rob Terry at scrum half, Tony ‘Hat Ripper’ McLaughlin and Chris ‘knock on’ Turner in the second row, Bobby ‘Giggsy’ Bolton at outside center and James ‘Friday night is party night’ Regan at flanker. Unfortunately we were unable to source a replacement for knock on enthusiast and undercover Kirkby player Tom ‘booked on the first flight out of England just in case’ Relph.
The game started at a frenetic pace but Bolton slowly gained the upper hand through the boot of Chris ‘hot potato’ Turner and some bone shuddering hits from Tom Lee and James ‘is he drunk all the time?’ Regan. With fat captain Nick Sandbrook distracted by the smell of Bratwurst emanating from the Beer Fest he’s somehow managed to totally mess up the only job he had in writing down the scorers… So its guess work time.
Bolton’s pressure began to tell and they took an opportunity with a penalty in front of the sticks to chalk up 3 points, Tom Relph the scorer. Soon after Richard Dent snaffled a Kirkby lineout and from the resultant rolling maul Tony ‘Normal Knee’ McLaughlin burrowed over in the corner. Conversion missed. Kirkby fought back firing a warning shot across Boltons bow with a penalty pulling the score back to 8 – 3.
From then Bolton didn’t look back with some slick hands and at times Champagne (read Lambrini) Rugby. Danny Ryder nearly scampered in with an interception try and would have if he was a normal sized human being before James ‘AA’ Regan slipped around the outside and put Stuart Evans in, to dab down in the corner (Conv missed by Terry). 13 – 3 the half time score.
Having spent half time with Santo O’Brien chucking Jaffa Cakes at people Bolton again came out strong Danny Ryder stepping his way through to another try, converted by Relph. Kirkby were valiant in defeat and kept fighting with another penalty added to make the score 20 – 6.
A nice amble down the wing from thin prop / fat winger Ryan Wignall saw Tom ‘Heads’ Relph with his chance to shine, our resident Kirkby man tried his best to drop the ball while heading under the posts but just about clung on. Conversion added by Mr Knock On himself. Bolton rounded off their scoring with Santo O’Brien who found space on the blind side and was able to scamper the 70m clear for the try. Conversion again added by Relph.
Kirkby to their credit never gave up and got a deserved converted try at the death for a Final Score of Bolton 2’s 34, Kirkby 2’s 16.
Fraser Hart MOM – James Regan
The Silly Hat Award – Paul Sutcliffe
The Russian Linesman Award – Dave Evans
The Not quite getting the drinking game award – Mark ‘Domino’ Townsend
The award for being dump tackled by a midget that didn’t even happen in the 2’s game but still needs mention – Danny Joseph