Manchester Festival

After a late cancellation, Bolton scrambled into the Under12’s Manchester Festival at the last minute. Eventually we found our pitch and managed a half hearted warm up session.

The first match was against the hosts Manchester and the Bolton boys started well with long range tries tries from Jake Rimmer and debutant Joseph Cropper. Manchester fought back and pressured Bolton until Myles Garth closed the game down with another barnstorming run down the middle. The second game was against Sandbach. A three try defeat did not do the boys justice as some simple errors resulted in two tries against the run of play. The final game was another defeat, two tries to nil by a well drilled and aggressive rucking Sheffield side.

Given the fact that we had well over 40% of boys who haven’t played rugby for more then three months in total, the coaches see this as a real positive step, and the fact that both defeats did not reflect the way in which the Bolton boys played. Man of the match was Lewis Picton, who put in a series of crushing tackles to repel Sheffield in the final game.

Notable mentions to new boy Conah Mansfield for scrummaging and rucking well, and to Tom McNulty for cover tackling and playing way above this size and build.

A good shot of Lewis Picton on a cover tackle, but it didn’t show how he adjusted to tackling his opponent to the ground !!