Ashton won the toss and decided to play with the wind in their favour, so Bury kicked off into the wind, which kept shifting between diagonal and end to end.

For the first 10 minutes play was mainly in the middle of the park and, whilst Bury were enjoying the upper hand in the scrums it was Ashton who broke the deadlock with a try wide right. 5-0 after 13 minutes.

Shortly afterwards, the Ashton 10, kicking with the wind, kicked a penalty, to make it 8-0.
From the restart, an Ashton knock-on allowed Bury to gain possession and establish themselves in the opposition half with some strong carries from Ed Watkins playing out of position in the centre.

From a lineout Bury had a good driving maul, finished off by Leo Freschini powering over to put Bury on the score sheet, 8-5 with a quarter of the match gone.

However, 5 minutes later, Ashton were to extend their lead when they managed to charge down an attempted clearance kick and win the race to dot the ball down. The conversion made it 15-5, which is how the 1 st half was to finish.

Bury started the 2 nd half well, using the wind and more strong carries from Watkins to get deep into the Ashton half. Good pressure on the Ashton line allowed Evan Poole to pick up and dive over, 15-10 after 5 minutes.

It took another 20 minutes for either try line to be threatened, but it was in the favour of Bury who levelled the scores at 15 apiece thanks to a dominant scrum and Freschini getting his 2 nd try of the day.

However, Ashton responded well and in a rare visit into the Bury half grubbed the ball down the touchline and, again, won the race to the bobbling ball to touch down. 20-15.

The final 10 minutes were spent in the middle of the park, with Bury unable to gain any decent possession to enable them to get into a try-scoring position, so they had to make do with a losing bonus point.

Man of the match was Ed Watkins.

Bury 2 nd and 3 rd XVs were both at home, the 2 nd team losing to a North Manchester 1 st XV 17-31, with Joe Parker Bury’s Man of the Match and the 3 rd team beating Aldwinians 17-12 with Bury’s MOTM Elliott Popelier securing the victory in his senior rugby debut, with a last-minute try.

Nest Saturday, Bury are at home to Ormskirk, with the 2s on the road at Fleetwood and the 3s away
to Marple.