Oldham U14s v Bolton U14s

After a successful start to the year, which had brought Oldham 2 wins from 2, they welcomed Bolton RUFC U14s to Manor Park. This was the third fixture between the pair with Bolton winning the last game in the last minute. Oldham went into the game confident of gaining a third win in a row but without the services of the reliable Will Lunt, Joel Cunniffe and Ryan Clayton but did welcome back Harrison Green and Sameer Hassan to the squad.

Oldham won the toss and Captain Max Walsh decided to kick to the visitors. James Collinson’s kick off went deep into Bolton’s 22 and put them under some earlier pressure. Lewis Miller made an excellent tackle making sure the Bolton player went into touch. In the resulting lineout, Walsh made a fantastic break down the blindside beating numerous cover tackles but was finally put to ground just short off the try line. Oldham looked in control of the game for the first 10 minutes but a brilliant back play by Bolton opened the Oldham defence up and they scored a try against the run of play. After that, Oldham really struggled to get back into the game and were consistently getting turned over at the breakdown. Bolton finished the half scoring another 3 tries.

Half Time: Oldham u14 0 v Bolton u14 26

The second half started how the first finished, Oldham not doing the basics well and unable to retain possession of the ball. There was some excellent individual efforts in defence from Reece Longdin, Harrison Green, Gino Mcara and Sam Wilson but Oldham as a whole struggled to work as a team to make that all important unbreakable defensive line. Bolton finished strongly as well scoring a total of 5 trys in the second half.

Full time: Oldham u14 0 v Bolton u14 53

Overall, Oldham were beaten by a very good team in Bolton. Oldham will have to go back to working hard and working together in training to continue the success they have seen in recent weeks. There were some excellent individual performances from the likes of Sam Wilson, Harrison Green, Max Walsh and Joey Sykes but the man of the match had to go to Gino Mcara. He never let his head drop and was continuously working hard for his team.