THEY ran riot against the North Lancs/Cumbria Division’s bottom team, but as they prepare to face the side at the other end of the table, Bolton’s ranks have been decimated.

Although it took 20 minutes for their first score, Dave Crouch’s side ran in 10 tries at home to Burnley on Saturday.

Number eight Ben Cottam led the way with a hat-trick en route to his second man-of-the-match award in three weeks.

Fly-half Louis Lockett, who kicked six conversions, also touched down twice and Ryan McClusky, Louis Critchlow, Will Bate, Mark Chappelhow and Manny Tailor each grabbed a try in a thoroughly convincing 59-17 win, ample revenge for their surprise 27-22 loss at Burnley in October.

“Ben and the flankers alongside him have been a real strong point for us this season,” said Crouch. “I’m delighted we went out and avenged that defeat, we’re a much better team than we were back then.

“We wanted to see improvements as the season went along and I think we are doing that.

“We should probably have got about 80 points but we got a little bit of white line fever, got greedy and stopped playing as a team, but I can’t complain too much, we’re four points off the leaders now, so it’s not going too badly for us at the minute.”

Bolton have now made it eight wins in a row but that streak is bound to be tested this Saturday when they host the leaders, Aspatria.

It is one of the division’s designated free weekends but Bolton have been ordered to play what is a re-arranged fixture from just before Christmas, when a fully kitted-out Aspatria performed a baffling U-turn, refusing to play with half an hour to go to kick-off.

Bolton’s third XV played their match on an adjacent pitch that afternoon and the Aspatria squad – thought to have been missing a few regular players – cannot have been too put off by the conditions as they held an impromptu training session at Avenue Street before boarding the team bus back to Cumbria.

And although Bolton informed league officials before the season began that their club tour to Ireland was to take place this weekend, the RFU say they must fulfill their fixture, or face points deductions for all of their senior teams.

“I’ve not got great hopes for this weekend,” admitted Crouch. “We arranged this tour – our first in three years – for what was a free weekend and we’ve now been told the league fixture comes first.

“All three teams are missing a lot of lads, I think the first team will be 10 or 11 players short. We do have Jonny Stanfield coming back and Mike Mills, who hasn’t played for us this season, said he’ll play so I think that takes us to about seven first-teamers.

“We’ll have to take it on the chin, we’ll play and see what happens. If we didn’t we’d lose five points and so would the seconds and thirds.

“Our second team are fourth in their division and the thirds top so we don’t want them to be hit with penalties. We’ll just see what we can do.”