Hoodoo broken as the 1st XV win away at Anselmians.

With the rain stopping just minutes before kick off this looked like being a forwards affair out on the Wirral. With Bowdon attacking down the slope towards the club house the early exchanges were evenly matched. Bowdon were trying to play a more expansive game pushing the ball wide whenever possible, this proved fruitful with quarter of an hour gone when Jack Bennett scored out wide after some great counter attacking rugby from Mitch McGrath running back a kick from midfield. Throughout the whole game Anselmians couldn’t contain Mitch, making his first appearance of the season and making up for lost time!

The only other scores in the first half were a penalty each giving the half time score of 3 : 8 in favour of Bowdon. On reflection Bo’ should have been out of site at this point having already scored enough tries to earn the bonus point! But several dropped passes with the try line begging or a fantastic overlap missed,meant the home side had hope going into the second period.

The second period opened with the home side scoring a converted try, to give them a lead for the first and only time. Bowdon responded with some penetrating attacks. Alfie Jones skipped several tackles and handed of the winger before he was cynically high tackled to stop his progress to the try line. A ten minute breather for the Anselmians No 5, but the travelling support thought it should have been an early bath! A few minutes later after another penalty - this time 5 meters from the line, a quick thinking John Blackwell took a quick tap and drive to score to give Bowdon a 3 point lead. This only lasted for 5 minutes as a home penalty in front of the posts tied the scores.

With 15 minutes to go Mitch McGrath got control of the Ball around half way and decided to enough was enough. He single handled ran round - but mainly through - half the opposition on the way to scoring a wonderful individual try between the posts making the conversion a formality. Seven minutes later and not to be out done Michael Swetman danced through the flailing defence to score then convert his own try, and giving Bowdon the 4 try bonus point

The last 5 minutes of the game saw the home side press to get a score back. With 2 minutes to go Darius was sent to the sin bin for what looked like hands in a ruck a yard from Bowdon’s try line. Anselmians did have the final converted try right on the full time giving them a losing bonus point.

For Bowdon there were several candidates for Man of the Match, special mention to Ben Dilworth, Danny Marshall and Alfie Dudman-Jones, but the award went to Mitch McGrath.

The next game is on Saturday 7th November at home against Wigan