BOLTON Mets followed up their opening-day defeat with a convincing 30-6 victory at Golborne Parkside on Saturday.

After their lacklustre performance against Newton Storm seven days earlier, the patched-up side showed hugely impressive character in the North West League Division Five win.

Patrick O'Brien outpaced the home defence to score the opening try, which was converted by Kieran Lockett who was playing his first competitive game for the club for 18 months.

Golborne hit back with a converted try of their own before the rapidly-improving Callum Smith raced over for his first try for the club after 25 minutes.

Lockett dived over from close range followed by an easy conversion to make it 16-6 at half time.

Adam Millington bagged himself a try from close range, and Gavin Hatton benefitted from the fleet-footed Steven Harrison bypassing several defenders before offloading close to the line.

The home side went down to 12 men for a sin-binning, and Mets capitalised when Jonathan McMillan sidestepped two defenders before crashing through a third's challenge to just before the try line. From the next play Gavin Corfield crossed the whitewash for only his second Mets try ever.

Lockett made it three successful conversions out of five to complete the scoring.

Delighted head coach Al Scarbrough, whose side host Rylands Sharks at Avenue Street on Saturday, kick off 2.30pm, said: ā€œIā€™m very proud of the guys for pulling on the jersey and playing some good rugby out there, and all on the back of the hard work we put in at training.ā€

Individual awards went to O'Brien (opposition's man of the match) and McMillan (top tackler).