Home advantage leads to first league win

Bolton’s league campaign finally clicked on Sunday after 3 successive draws. The Bolton squad had made it through their respective school games on the Saturday unscathed and was at full strength. With the assistance of Phil Mills a full and focussed warm up was had with all minds turning to the coming game. The game kicked off with Bolton applying pressure in the opening moments, recycling the ball phase after phase. The pressure told and the referee gave a penalty under the posts and with quick thinking from Morgan he took a quick tap and crashed over for the opening try, Zak Grundy duly converted for a 7 – 0 lead. The rest of the half was more of the same with lots of pressure and near forays to the opponents line. One particular move caught the eye and was commented by the opposition coaches, clean ball from the back of the scrum was moved out to Ben Turner at fly half who put a pin point cross kick to the right wing Sam Dawson was half a step from catching the kick on the full but just knocked on close to the line. Two more tries arrived before half time courtesy of number 8 Dan Southworth meaning the score at half time was 17-0.

The message at half time to the Bolton players was more of the same. The second half kicked off with Bolton pressing for the 4th try and it duly arrived, Ben Turner pulling the strings of the attack put in a grubber kick which allowed Josh Grundy to touch down the ball, great try. From that point the Bolton coaches began to ring the changes. As the game wore on Boltons concentration started to wane and Widnes came back into the game and a couple of tries were leaked. All in all a great performance from the Bolton team from 1 to 22.

Final result Bolton 22 – Widnes 12

Tackler Award (Chosen by Tom Knights Rigler) – Josh Grundy

Contribution Award (Chosen by James Preston) – Morgan Skeels-Caldwell

Player of the Match (Bolton Coaches) – Dan Southworth (Pictured)