Little Hulton travelled to Westhoughton needing a win to propel them up the North West Men’s League Division Four.
The Reds played and lost to their local rivals twice already this year and frustratingly sit below them in the league.
The game started at The Den in Bolton with Little Hulton totally in control.
Front rower Ken Sackfield was able to break the Westhoughton defence after 10 minutes but was judged not to have grounded the ball and Westhoughton broke to run the length of the field against the run of play to put themselves six points to the good.
Little Hulton were still pounding on the Westhoughton door.
Making a tactical switch in moving Hargreaves from center to fullback and bringing Heaton into the backs paid dividends immediately when Little Hulton moved the ball swiftly from left to right stretching the Westhoughton defence and giving Heaton the chance to open the Reds’ account.
The game developed into an arm wrestle: no quarter asked and none given.
Westhoughton manged to hit Little Hulton on the break to open up a 12-4 lead for themselves.
When big Mike Jones entered the fray things got a little better for the Reds: Jones made a break only to be caught, offloading to Hessian and then Aron Bell who flew over the line to reduce the deficit to four points.
Quick thinking from Arron Bell led to him diving over the line to level the scores but in one of their rare visits to the Reds half Westhoughton were handed a soft penalty and managed to score an unconverted try to give is a half time score of Westhoughton 16 Little Hulton Reds 12.
The second half started with Little Hulton Reds in control and it wasn’t long before Danny Jones was on hand to to drive over the line and bring parity to the scoreboard once again.
It was Westhoughton’s turn to put some pressure on the Reds and they were rewarded again to again go six points clear.
It seemed like the effort had taken its toll on the Bolton side and it became wave up on wave of Little Hulton attacks on the Westhoughton line.
After sterling defence, at last they cracked, giving pacey wing Chris Gaffey the chance to round his opposite number and score wide out.
It was game on again with the scores showing two points in Westhoughton’s favour with 10 minutes to go.
With time running out Mike Jones made the initial break and up stepped Aidy Heaton to gather the quick play and race under the sticks with only three minutes remaining.
It seemed rather cruel on the Westhoughton side after all the defending they had done, but it also showed Little Hulton Reds won’t go down with out a fight.
Final score: Westhoughton 22 Little Hulton Reds 24.
