BOLTON paid for a lack of teamwork in falling to their second away defeat of the season, a last-gasp breakaway try by Oldham sealing their 31-23 victory in the North Lancs/Cumbria division.

After falling behind to a second-minute try Bolton trailed 19-11 at half time, Louis Critchlow’s try and two penalties from Rhys Pritchard keeping them in touch.

Alex Waddicar’s try, converted by captain Pritchard brought them to within a point but shortly afterwards, Oldham capitalised with a try when the visitors were caught napping at a missed penalty attempt.

Jonny Stanfield went over for Bolton’s third try to set up a frantic final five minutes. But, as the Cherry and Whites pushed for a winning score, an intercepted pass was run all the way back to seal the win for Oldham.

“Basically we didn’t play to the standard we have done before and we conceded three soft tries,” said head coach Dave Crouch. “The full-back ran around everybody for one, there was the interception try right at the end and, as for the try at their penalty, I haven’t got any hair left to tear out.

“Deep down we all know we can do better and we should have done better. Their coach said to us after the game that we have some talented players but we just didn’t play as a team. We imploded a bit.

“On the plus side we scored some good tries but that goes out of the window if we’re not going to work together.

“We won’t be too down-hearted though, we just have to be better this Saturday. We’ve got the club’s annual former players’ lunch and we want to show them how we can play and entertain them.”

Vice-captain Critchlow admitted there had been some harsh words spoken on the training ground this week, but feels with better decision-making they should have enough quality to maintain their winning record at home when Littleborough come to town.

“There were clinical errors that a first XV at this level shouldn’t be making,” he said. “When that penalty went behind, the idea is to touch it down or let it go dead.

“We were caught out, it was silly and that’s seven points that could easily have been avoided.

“We put ourselves under pressure late on by not kicking to safety, we couldn’t seem to close them in and we didn’t work together well enough with the ball.

"We've got a lot to work on for the visit of Littleborough this week, They've done really well so far this season so we'll look to go out there and put things right.”

Second-row forward Critchlow, one of |Crouch's on-field leaders, at least had a fine try to look back on with personal pride, though he was pipped to Bolton's man-of-the-match award by number eight Ryan McCluskey.

"Mine was a good little score, I was pleased with it," he added. "There was some good passing play to create the chance and I was one-on-one with their full-back.

"I looked around and had no support so I just thought I'd try to do what I'm best at – so I just ran through him."