The overriding factor in this North Lancashire Division Two game was the wind, persistently blowing at 30mph and with gusts in excess of 40. Bury played against the conditions in the first period and conceded a penalty after seven minutes.

Five minutes later, having worked the ball up field, Bury were awarded a penalty from a scrum.

Captain Jonny Allen took a fast tap penalty and fed stand off Matt Hindley, who scored in the corner. His attempt at the conversion, from a totally impossible angle with the wind, went well wide.

The home side struck back after a mistake by the match official allowed them a run in under the post and the conversion was easily added.

Bury levelled the scores in the 25th minute when lock forward James Swinburn’s tap penalty was crashed over the line for an unconverted try. The last score of the first period went to right wing, Sam Ware, when a break and clever pass by forward Alex English created the overlap to score. It gave Bury a five point lead at the interval.

Bury were to find themselves in trench in the their own 22 for nearly 20 minutes of the second period as a succession of penalties and set scrums were consistently awarded to Crosby. However when Bury finally did get a penalty on their own try line, Hindley was able to push the ball well down field for a line out.

The difficulty Bury faced with the wind now an advantage was that any kick launched high was likely to be blown over the dead ball area, potentially resulting in a set scrum to the opposition from where the ball was kicked. Therefore the only option was to play the ball in hand and try passing against the wind, which was almost impossible as it tended to blow the ball forward of the receiver.

Therefore, playing a game of short passes, backed up with rucks and mauls resulted in two further tries which were both scored by Dan Scanlan.

Hindley dropkicked one of the conversions as Bury emerged worthy winners by 27-10.

On Saturday, Bury will play North Lancs Division One side, Aston-Under-Lyne, at Radcliffe Road in the second round of the Lancashire Bowls. Kick-off is at 2.15pm.