THE Bolton League offered no excuses for their shock exit from the MEN inter-league competition at the hands of the Central Lancs League.

The local side were looked on as hot favourites to land a place in the final and set up a Bolton showdown with the Association, who played their part by overcoming the Northern League at Fleetwood.

"No excuses, everything was in our favour but we did not bat very well and that was that," was the verdict of selector Derek Kay.

"In truth we thought we had done well restricting them to 187 on what was a very good batting track.

"We thought that was gettable but our pinch hitter did not come off, although Paul Stafford did hit a six before he lost his wicket.

"We did recover from that with the partnership of Steve Parker and Dave Morris when they took the score to 80 and although we were a little behind the run rate, a target of 100 from 22 overs looked within our capabilities.

"Unfortunately just as we were looking for those two to push on a bit, they both lost their wickets within a very short time of each other.

"That left two incoming batsmen with the difficult job of rebuilding the innings

"Had we only lost only one wicket at that time, it could have been a different story, but it wasn't to be.

"We fell way behind the scoring rate and really there was no way back for us."

Ian Taylor, who had earlier been the League's top bowler with 4-20 off his ten overs, did his best with a late flurry of shots, three of them consecutive sixes, but in the end the League were dismissed 24 runs short of the target.