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North are electric as they cruise to victory at Lodge

28/10/2004

Rugby Union
North Manchester 43
Bolton 0

BOLTON were the visitors to Tudor Lodge last Saturday, looking to gain revenge over a North Manchester team which had dumped them out of the cup in a titanic struggle three weeks ago.

Emotions were running high at the start of the game after a minute's silence had been superbly observed by players and spectators of both clubs, in memory of a long time friend of North, Stan McCarrick, who died last week after a long illness.

North were inspired from the kick-off, with forwards Chris Consterdine, Colin Meredith and Chris Taylor dominating their larger counterparts.

Taylor opened the scoring after one of his trademark bursts into the visitor's territory. The Bolton tacklers seemed to have little effect on the strong running Taylor as he smashed through for the try which John Eady converted.

From the restart the forwards again dominated and North were camped deep inside Bolton's half for several minutes.

Bolton finally cracked after great work by Luke Corrigan had allowed Chris Hyland to exploit the space in the visitors defence to score. Again the try was converted to make the score 14-0.

John Eady added a 40-metre penalty with ease on the stroke of half time to leave the scoreline 17-0 at the break.

North made several changes to their side at half time, but the team continued to show good form in the second half.

At 17-0 down the last man the visiting team wanted to see run out for the second half was North's player-coach Andy Donley.

Donley stamped his authority on the game within minutes of the restart. The centre collected the ball from a lineout and ran in from 30 metres without a Bolton player able to put a hand on him.

The conversion was added from in front of the posts to make it 24-0.

Donley added his second try of the afternoon after Gordon Morrison and James Englebert had combined to release him to touch down in the corner. A difficult conversion was missed but North held a commanding 29-0 lead.

Bolton began to lose their discipline and had a player sin-binned following a savage late tackle on North fullback James Hyland.

Hyland responded in the best possible fashion, with an outrageous sidestep and 50-metre sprint before offloading to winger Steve Donoghue for the try. Eady again added the conversion to make it 36-0.

Another half-time substitute, Ian Thompson, capped a glorious 40 minutes with another powerful run from centre. It left him one on one with Bolton's fullback but he unselfishly passed to support runner Donley who completed his hat-trick. Eady's conversion made the final score 43-0.

Andy Donley was awarded the Pete Swales Electrical Contractors man-of-the-match award for his second half hat-trick. He said: "This was a fantastic team performance.

"On behalf of the team I would like to thank Pete Swales Electrical Contractors for providing this seasons First XV strip and helping to maintain the only rugby union club in the North Manchester area."

North travel to Burnley this weekend hoping to continue their good start to the season.