Bolton Mets 6 St Helens Wild Boar
Tries: Adam RyanGoals: Chris
Man of the Match:Lee Bennett
The first home game of the season for Bolton Mets ended in disappointment against St Helens Wild Boar. Bolton's defence was atrocious for the first 20 minutes and attack wasn't much better. Missed tackles in defence and dropped balls in attack by the Mets led to Wild Boar taking the lead with some good handling skills that allowed them to score out wide. This was quickly followed by a second try for the St Helens side to give them a 10-0 lead.
Bolton finally started to settle and some good forward work set the platform for the backs to use the ball and Captain Mark Dorning?s flat pass sent Adam Ryan over in the corner. Chris Clarke converted the try to bring the Mets back into the game at 10-6. A serious injury to hooker Ryan Terry before half time shook Bolton and from this they never recovered.
Wild Boar started the second half as they had started the first with an early try, again breaking through the Bolton defensive line to score in the corner. Bolton tried to kick start their attacking game but attempts failed with continuous handling errors, frustration started to show and heads started to drop.
The away team ran in two more tries scoring under the posts to give the kicker two easy conversions before Neil Walsh was sin binned for leading with the elbow. This allowed St Helens to run in their final try of the day which brought the score to 32-6. The Bolton defence did tighten up later in the second half but it was too little too late to rescue the game. Man of the match was prop forward Lee Bennett, followed by Joe Harte and Louis Taylor.