The Miners retained their 100% record and took the win against the previously unbeaten St Judes team. Bold, notoriously slow starters in recent seasons finally came firing out of the blocks, and stunned their opponents with an early 3 try blast. The forwards laid the early platform with Liam Crehan, Andy Murray and Tommy Higgins to the fore and this gave the backs the opportunity to go on the attack and get the ball wide, and debutant centre Andy Dobson in his first game for 4 years went over for 2 almost identical tries with his first 2 touches of the ball for the Miners. Halfbacks Ste Dumphy and Gaz Mercer set up position for the 3rd try and this time instead of scoring himself Dobson found fullback Ian Webster with a neat inside pass to leave the shellshocked Wiganers facing a 16-0 deficit when they had barely touched the ball. St Judes did however pick themselves up and get back into the game after some sustained pressure they managed to score a try, the home team now had the best of the next part of the game, but could not breach the defence led by Paul Johnson and Kelvin Walkden and it was in fact Bold who recorded the next score as against the run of play Andy Dobson followed a kick to claim his hat trick try. Another Judes try left the half time score at 22-10 to Bold.

The second half was a much scrappier affair as St Judes pushed to get back into the game and Bold tried everything to contain them, when Judes enjoyed some good position they got themselves on the scoresheet, but Bold got back up and when the chance arose hooker Kelvin Walkden in the number 9 jersey for the first time this season spotted a gap from dummy half to go over for a typical try and put Bold firmly in control. Bold were now playing with the bare 13 as they had 4 injured men on the bench and with lads in the forwards asked to play longer minutes than expected it gave the home team the chance to score another try and close the gap once more, Bold had the final say when full back Webster spotted a gap on a kick return and put in a grubber kick towards the line to chase, and despite the efforts of the defenders Gaz Mercer managed to touchdown in the scramble for the ball and seal a 32-20 victory to put Bold at the top of the league.

Grundy Excavations Man of the Match was Kelvin Walkden, but had the impressive Andy Dobson not had to go off injured early in the second half he would have pushed him close and you would not have bet against him adding to his 3 tries. Captain Paul Johnson inevitably was the top tackler!

Team:

1 Ian Webster
2 Dave Quigley
3 Andy Dobson
4 Andy Leyland
5 Colin Slater
6 Ste Dumphy
7 Gaz Mercer
8 Andy Murray
9 Kelvin Walkden
10 Liam Crehan
11 Tommy Higgins
12 Stu Cranny
13 Paul Johnson

14 Mark Rushton
15 Adam Welsby
16 Neil Hilton
20 Tim Gladwin.