BOLTON Mets may be enduring adversity these days but there are signs the better times are returning.

The club began life in 1995 at Breightmet ARLFC but a year on they became Bolton Mets, expanding the club to take in a wider catchment area while retaining part of its original name.

There is no disguising that the present-day Mets are in an uphill battle.

Bottom of the North West Men’s League Division Five, they are on course for a third successive foot-of-the-division finish. This season their record is an unenviable 12 losses from 12 league games, including a 30-20 derby defeat to Bury Broncos last time out.

“Obviously it has been a trying couple of years, we’re trying to pinpoint exactly why that is,” said chairman Stuart Cooke.

“Many of our more experienced players have either retired or, in the case of some of the better ones, gone on to play for other clubs at a higher level.

“We have brought in others, some that are far less experienced, in some cases who have never played the game before, so it’s almost like we’re starting from square one all the time. We don’t complain about having people coming down and being enthusiastic about joining us, though.

“Bolton is primarily a football town and with us having Salford, Wigan and Leigh so close by there are many fans of those teams in Bolton and many potential players choose to go elsewhere to play their rugby. Also we feel looking at our results may scare a few players away when we’re trying to recruit.”

The club is based at Bolton RUFC’s Avenue Street ground and, although some of the Cherry and Whites have crossed codes to turn out for the Mets, they are not able to play throughout the union season as well as rugby league during their off-season.

“We had a 17-year-old from the union club, Sam Smith, who came in and played nine or 10 games towards the end of last season,” said Stuart. “He has great ability and his performances really stood out. Unfortunately he broke his ankle playing union. He may be able to feature again before the end of the season but we won’t be pressuring him to do so.

“We have had some players coming through from their Colts section, which is great for us. These lads come over because many have not played league before and they want to learn new skills with us.

“We have also had a number of older squad players come across for a few games and they have enjoyed themselves thoroughly.”

As for the future Stuart, who also serves as secretary and treasurer at the Mets, remains optimistic about their prospects for the future and is adamant better times are to come.

“We have a very good coach in Alan Scarbrough, he has a lot of experience and the lads are learning a lot from him,” he added.

“We always try to be competitive and we’ve been close in many games so we’ll plod on and keep fighting.

“We do struggle for numbers, many times since I took over as chairman I have had to ring round ahead of games to try to get the players to raise a team, but over the last five games we’ve had 19 lads available, so if that can continue and we can get a settled side it would make a massive difference, that is my main frustration at the moment.

“Obviously none of us are happy to be losing each week, but the priority at the moment is to enjoy it. We are not of a winning mindset unfortunately but at the end of the day it’s a hobby for us and we are proud to be facilitating rugby league in the town.

“There is so much character in the squad and there is certainly enough reason to think we can turn our results around. In each game we have 10 or 15-minute spells where we’re conceding three or four tries and obviously those spells are costly because they put us out of the game.

“If we can cut that out and if we can get more consistency in our team selections we feel we can be much more competitive.”

If you would like to try your hand at the sport and could have a helping hand in turning around the Mets’ fortunes, contact Stuart on 07802 608256 or at boltonmets@hotmail.co.uk