The young Whites found their near-neighbours just too strong but didn’t go down to the Colls without a fight.
It was a youthful B Team line-up that took on the Northern Premier League outfit with a number of Wanderers’ regular squad on first-team duty or watching from the sidelines at the Dreams2Reality Stadium with knocks.
Wanderers added a couple more to the injury list, including Luke Lomas who took a heavy blow five minutes into a competitive encounter to be replaced by a trialist goalkeeper.
But coach Andy Taylor was pleased at how his young charges stood up to the test, as a number of scholars got their first taste of senior football.
“We were very, very young, with some players exposed to men's football for probably the first time in their whole careers,” said Taylor, whose side was beaten by a 20th-minute strike from Atherton forward and vastly experienced non-league campaigner Aaron Dwyer.
“They’re a physical team, a strong team, a team who play direct and a team that make you defend and I thought, to be fair, they stood up to it really well.
“I think the young lads held their own, more than held their own. I thought the longer the game went on, the more we got control in terms of the possession of the game and the more we worked them side to side a little bit.
“Obviously, we struggled to really create too much in the final third but it wasn’t a bad run out, to be fair.
“For some of these boys, the exposure there to men's football is a great experience for them. We’ve got some of the lads involved with the first team at the minute, which is brilliant and the coming up from the 18s to the 21s, brilliant. And, like I say, they more than held their own today and competed really well.”
Wanderers started with five scholars in their ranks before introducing eight more off the bench in the second half, including five who have joined the club this year as new first-years.
At the other end of the experience scale, player-coach Andrew Tutte completed the 90 minutes as the leader of the pack and went as close as anyone to finding an equaliser as he cajoled and coaxed from midfield.
Alongside him, captain Harley Irwin underlined his growing stature as a first-year professional, while Mark Isong battled away up front and threatened once on the break before half-time. Left-back Tomi Adesina – another summer recruit – also had a pop at goal as Wanderers found it hard to create chances.
Colls – given a walk-over in the extra preliminary round of the FA Cup to give them an extra week’s wait to the start of their season on 9th August – could have added to their lead and went close through Dwyer again when he struck a post just after half-time.
But the Whites battled manfully to just keep about keep the hosts at arm’s length and when they did get on the ball for spells created a couple of openings.
Tutte forced Conor Robson into a scrambling save and twice in the closing stages substitute Corey Nuttall had sights of goal he couldn’t convert into an equaliser.
The Whites’ next challenge comes at Longridge Town next Tuesday night before facing another academy line-up in Huddersfield Town next Saturday as the countdown to the new season continues.
Lomax (Trialist 5); Trialist, O’Neill, Sixsmith, Adesina; Irwin, Tutte; Leigh, Lewis, Ritchie; Isong. Substitutes used: Baucutt, Evans, Kirkpatrick, Quirk, Mawditt, Nuttall, Clement, Taylor, Lewis.