THEIR Premier Division hopes rely on other results going their way, but Old Boltonians are doing everything in their power in front of goal to land the title.

Last week’s 5-0 derby win against Horwich St Marys Victoria sparked a purple patch of scoring form for the team in black and white.

Matt McLellan hit three of those goals, and he earned a match ball with another treble in Saturday’s 5-4 cup victory over Bolton Wyresdale.

While McLellan could not manage a third straight hat-trick, he did get a goal on Monday night – with Sean Rushton taking over three-goal salvo duties – as Old Bolts beat Old Blackburnians 7-1 in the cup.

His table-topping team is still fighting on multiple fronts but manager Steve Eccleshare says he has to hope Mostonians – two points behind with two games in hand – end the season with a stutter.

“It’s a big ask for us to win the league this year,” he said. “We don’t know what will happen from now to the end of the season, we still have to play Rossendale twice and both of those games will be tricky.

“It relies more on what Mostonians do though, I know they went out of the LFA Cup last week so I’m hoping they’ll be dejected.

“But it’s out of our hands after we have been at the top just about all of the season.

“Losing to Mostonians twice looks like it’ll cost us but we had five players missing both times and if that turns out to be why we fell short I can accept it.

“They aren’t guaranteed to win all their games, though, I’ve seen before when teams play so many matches so close together they can’t be at their best and that’s also when injuries occur. We have a few getting bumps and bruises too.”

While his players are earning the tag of great entertainers in recent weeks, Eccleshare was keen to compliment Wyresdale who, although mid-table in Division One, pushed them all the way on Saturday.

“It was a great game at Wyresdale, I really enjoyed watching the good young team Aamar [Ahmed, manager] has put together. I have to give them a lot of credit, they have players who can score goals now, whereas usually they’ve relied mainly on having a strong defence.

“They’ll concede a few these days but they can be awesome finishers. They stuck at it as well, they may be young lads but they didn’t crumble or roll over.

“We had to step up a level and it was difficult after the work we’d put in in the Horwich game, to keep going when we kept getting pegged back.

“I was relieved to come away with the win, it wasnervy but it will have been brilliant to watch.”

Wherever they end the campaign, Eccleshare says it has been a pleasing season, given the transition his side is undergoing.

“The biggest thing for us is the change the team is going through, we’ve brought in good young players like Matt Sandham, Tom Curtains and Rob Davies and they, and others, have done well when they’ve been called upon.

“Bringing in so many, we felt this was going to be a bit of a transitional season, and next year we expect to be throwing another four or five lads in the mix, so if we do finish second, or even third, it will have been a massive achievement for us.”

Horwich were 3-1 winners at home to Old Mancunians on Saturday but suffered defeat by the same scoreline when they took on Roach Dynamos on Monday night.

Little Lever won 5-3 in their cup-tie at home to Thornleigh.

n In the Manchester Football League, Bolton County were 4-0 winners at home to Monton, with Tom Aspen, Tom Axon-Smith, Jordan McLoughlin and Kieran Hennessey scoring.

Breightmet United also tasted success, as they beat Hindley Juniors 1-0, Thomas Whiteman netting the only goal of the game at Back Bury Road.