WITH Bolton's first team taking a rest it was up to the other teams within the club to fly the flag.

Bolton thirds were beaten 22-3 at Manchester in a difficult away fixture.

Bolton took the game to Manchester through an awesome forward performance early on.

Mark Down maintained the pressure by taking scrum after scrum against the head. The pressure was turned into points through a Darren Miller penalty.

At half time the match was on a knife edge Bolton trailed 3-5.

In the second half the home advantage became apparent with knowledge of the size and the width of the pitch came in to play, as Manchester ran in 4 tries to finish the game 22-3 this does not reflect the closeness of the contest.

Bolton's vets entertained Littleborough at Avenue Street and won 17-13 in a game that was dominated by the visitors. Only gallant defence in particular from Ian Hart and Gary Mathieson kept Bolton in the game.

Tommy Lowe scored an excellent try to peg the visitors back to 13-7 by half-time.

In the second period Charlie Walton finished off his own kick to score and Martyn Higgins made the crucial break to pass to Richard Braithwaite who ran home to score the winning try.

The win was against the run of play and the vets had to work extremely hard against the bigger Littleborough forwards.

Manchester 22 Bolton 3rd 3