In a nice repeat of last week, Bury made a lively start from their kick off, recovering possession on the Prenton 22. An early penalty was awarded to Bury for a high tackle and they kicked to the corner. A good driving maul took them to 2 metres out; Watts got close from a short line and Swinburn picked up to crash over. The conversion attempt hit the post; 5-0 after 2 minutes.
Another penalty allowed fly-half Smith to put his team in the corner for another driving maul, which resulted in skipper Palmieri dotting down. Smith converted well; 12-0 after 10 minutes.
From the restart, Bury were pinged for holding on, allowing Prenton to kick to the corner themselves and get into the game with a converted try. 12-7.
Shortly later, Prenton were able to draw level when, from a smart kick into space from the lively scrum half, their winger outpaced the Bury defence. 12-12 after 17 minutes.
With the scores level, the game went through a bit of a cagey stage, testing each other out with kicks and Bury seemed to get the rough end of the decisions as far as the contact area were concerned, so it was just as well for Bury that the Prenton lineout did not function as well as the hosts would have wanted.
Nevertheless, Prenton managed to get the upper hand when their scrum half sniped over from close quarters from a maul to make it 19-12.
However, Bury ended the first half with Swinburne crashing over for his 2nd try to make it 19-17 to Prenton at half time.
Bury would have wanted to start the 2nd half the way that they had started the 1st half but play was a bit disjointed as there were a number of stoppages for injuries for both sides and theye could not get into sort of rhythm. However, Bury able to capitalise on their territorial advantage and from a 5 metre scrum Cheung picked from the base and powered over in the corner to go 19-22 ahead and at this stage of the game the home side were starting to look tired.
Almost straight away, Bury pressured Prenton deep in their own half and, in a rather speculative attempt to run the ball from their line they knocked on. Frustration got the better of the offender, who then obstructed Campbell and prevented him from gathering the loose ball. Bury ran the penalty and maintained the pressure with some good joined-up play, resulting in Watts stretching his arm to score. Smith converted, 19-29 as the match reached the three-quarter mark.
From the re-start Burt were again penalised at the breakdown and Prenton decided to take the 3 points, to bring them within 7 points at 22-29.
However, that was going to be the last time that Prenton would trouble the scoreboard and, straight from a superb Bury restart, the receiver was placed under pressure, and knocked the ball on straight into the arms of a grateful Watts, who ran down the wing to score in the corner; 22-34.
Despite not managing to score Prenton, mainly through their No 9’s canny kicks, did enjoy periods inside the Bury 22, but were kept out by good defence.
The last 10 minutes saw Bury score 3 more tries through Jones, Loftus and, finally, Cheung, for his second, to give a final score of 22-53 which, it must be said, is not really reflective of how close the match was and it was possibly the better fitness of the Bury squad that told.
MOTM could have gone to a few players, including Cheung, Palmieri and Swinburne, but Watts got the nod ahead of them.