BUOYED up after our exploits in Cardiff and suitably refreshed after the Bradshaw Beer Festival, we arrived in the Fanzone in good spirits.

This was a chance to test ourselves for next season against one of the promotion favourites without any pressure.

Classical crossover soprano Joanna Forest sang beautifully and received the best response of the season from the fans. We Bolton fans admire a bit of culture.

There was better news on the injury front as the White Diamonds are back up to a quintet and Mark Davies was on the bench.

However, Craig Davies had another sick note and surprisingly Matt Mills was not even one of the subs.

For the first 15 minutes Norwich were indisputably on top and went ahead through a poorly defended but debatable free-kick. Josh Vela won the ball cleanly but followed through.

In the days when you could tackle, this would not have been a free kick.

It looked like we were in for a thrashing but after a brilliant run by Tom Walker, Adam Le Fondre slotted home the equaliser.

This seemed to stop Norwich in their tracks.

The rest of the match was fairly even-stevens as neither side looked like winning it until our latest attack of the nervous 90s when we left Gary Hooper with enough room to lob the winner.

This sparked rumours that lastminute.com might become our shirt sponsors next season.

As a test, I think we failed. It was close.

A draw would have been a fair result but we have got to learn that the game is not over until the final whistle.

While there were some good performances from the likes of Tom Walker and Barry Bannan, there were others who failed to impress.

The team that starts next season could well be unrecognisable from the team that started today as players return from injury, contracts are sorted and loans terminated or refreshed.

Neil Lennon has a lot of decisions to get right. The close season promises to be more exciting than this season.