Bury 33 - Calder Vale 8

CALDER VALE are languishing at the bottom of the division having already been demoted from North Lancs South Cumbria, writes MIKE JONES.

Judging by their performance on Saturday, this is not the team that Bury played in the pre-league days.

Having said that, it would have been reasonable to expect a 50-point margin, though the scoreline appears satisfactory, the match itself only sparked intermittently.

Bury opened the scoring after 12 minutes when stand off Loftus pulled the cover and Matt Fawcett sliced through the opposition centres as if they were not there.

At 14 and a half stones and standing six foot plus combined with a back row's tenacity, this should have been the key to a points fest.

However, Bury then proceeded to lose the plan and wasted the talents of the threequarters, particularly the fastest man in the club, Mark Fielding, and the pure physical presence of the centres and the guile of Loftus.

Full back Keith Webb added two penalties in the 25th and 36th minutes, but it was an incident that took place after 30 minutes which took the spectators by surprise.

Anybody who understands rugby knows that the front five are herd animals. They cloak their activities in a mystique which only they claim to understand and move in an amorphous mass, claiming it to be a controlled maul.

However, occasionally one becomes lost and isolated from the group and, being disorientated, acts in an unexplained manner.

Lock forward Kennedy suffered this fate on Saturday. He breaks from the maul, charges down the attempted clearance from the opposing full back and is faced with three options -- fly hack the ball dead, stand awestruck and let the ball be stolen and cleared, or lastly, pluck it from the floor with the alacrity of Michael Jordan and leap like a startled Springbok to ground for a try. He returns to his fellows, who crowd round and warn him of the dangers of such creativity. Scoring tries does not replace the pleasure of being gouged, kicked, head-butted and bitten -- and that's only by his own players.

In the last minute of the first half the visitors finally opened their account with a penalty from 20 metres for reasons unknown, the referee continuing in his exhibition of enthusiastic mediocrity.

After the restart, the most exciting thing that took place in the first 20 minutes was the inauguration of the new floodlighting system in a competitive league match.

Just as well, as the game had started 15 minutes late and would have had to be curtailed had the lights not been available.

The club has 275KVA of capacity on offer -- it is to be hoped the National Grid might be interested!

After 20 minutes Bury decided to wake from their comatose state and Webb was given an easy shot at goal following an offence for obstruction, easily converted from 25 metres out.

The visiting team finally maanged to score a try in the 62nd minute, a well-worked effort when the No 8 exposed Bury's blindside weakness to create a two-man overlap and Fielding had no chance to stop the effort. Bury then enjoyed their best spell of the game. Fawcett added another try and, with the game now out of sight, Bury shuffled the team to introduce fresh legs and finally run the ball at the opposition.

Nick Smithson retired with injury and Freschini moved to his old No 8 berth. Rob Wardle filled in at centre, Mike Livesey took over from Glyn Smith at scrum half and Ric Roberts replaced Holland at prop.

Bury could have scored on three more occasions, but only managed one more try when Fawcett completed his hat-trick.

His last effort would have done credit to a bull loose in the streets of Pamplona as the defenders were having a fit of tackle-avoidance and Fawcett, not surprisingly, picked up the Man of the Match award.

Bury ran out easy winners, but there are lessons to be learned. The pack is secure in the set pieces, but lacks mobility in open play and the threequarter line is now looking capable of scoring at will, given a secure link under the astute stewardship of Loftus at outhalf.

BURY: Holland, Whitehead, Marshall, A Smith, Kennedy, Westwood (c), Smithson, Robinson, G Smith, Loftus, Stott, Freschini, Fawcett, Fielding, Webb. Replacements: Wardle (for Smithson, 70 mins), Livesey (for Smith, 70), Roberts (for Holland, 70).

Tomorrow Burnage visit Radcliffe Road in a league match (kick-off 2.30pm).