The U18s fell to defeat against Cardiff City in their opening Professional Development League game, writes Harrison Gray.
Wanderers led at the break through a Sonny Coyne goal but conceded three times after the break to make a losing start to life at a new level.
The match began as a cagey affair with chances few and far between, bar a few smart stops down low from Wanderers keeper Luke Lomax early on.
In the 23rd minute, the first real chance for the home side occurred when Denver Clement – who scored for the U21s on Friday night – picked up the ball on the right-hand side and after beating his man delivered a ball into the box that was parried by Cardiff keeper Joshua Donovan and just eluded a Whites’ touch in front of goal.
Pressure continued to increase on the City’s back line as a Sam Hopkinson effort whistled past the post from the edge of the box just moments before Coyne had a
low effort saved by Donovan after some lovely play to skip past his man on the counter-attack.
Before the interval Lomax was called into action once more, with a great save from Elliott Yorke’s effort, which proved pivotal as a minute afterwards the deadlock was finally broken.
To nobody’s surprise, Coyne was involved once again and this time managed to find the net with a great finish to send the Wanderers into half-time in front.
However, the lead did not last long as Cardiff equalised in the 50th minute after a scramble in the box fell to captain Thomas Prickett, who flicked it past Lomax and into the bottom right-hand corner of the net.
The equaliser shifted the momentum in Cardiff’s favour, with the Bluebirds mounting pressure midway through the second half and eventually taking the lead when a breakaway saw Cardiff striker Leo Papirnyk cut across his man before sliding it calmly through the legs of Lomax in the 66th minute.
With Bolton now pushing to find an equaliser, it left them shorter at the back and the third followed moments after when the ball found Tiger Tobin to skip past substitute Qunes Fakhy and roll the ball under Lomax to double the away side’s advantage.
Wanderers continued to push to reduce the deficit with their biggest chance in the closing stages coming from Oliver Best, but with his powerful strike unable to beat Donovan there was no way back for the Whites.
Wanderers: Lomax, Marshall, Healy, Quirk, Evans, Hopkinson (Littler), Coyne, Best (Markham), Ogboru (Fakhy), Clement (Baxter), Desilva-Zuill.