However, in a rather inauspicious start, Bury completely failed to deal with the Ormskirk kick off, giving the visitors early and easy possession and territory.

Thankfully, though, the lapse was short-lived and from the next few attacking sets from Ormskirk, the Bury defence consistently stopped them in their tracks and knocked them back.

Realising that the ball-in-hand, direct route was not paying dividends, they opted to kick, but young fullback Noah Lawton was more than up to the task and put in a tremendous return kick, turning Ormskirk with a smart, deep kick into space.

Ormskirk tried running it back but, again, the Bury defence was strong and they regained possession.

Good handling and a good straight line from skipper Danny Palmieri breached the Ormskirk defence and an offload to Ethan Marsh in support resulted in a try, converted by Noah Lawton, to give Bury an early lead; 7-0 after 4 minutes.

Thankfully, this time Bury gathered the re-start kick and Ethan Marsh’s strong run put Bury on the front foot.

A neat kick over the top from scrum half Oscar Loftus and a strong follow-up tackle maintained the forward momentum and enabled Bury to regain possession.

Shortly after, a simple short pass and good running line saw inside centre Cal Watts break the line and a long pass out wide found Joe Hinchliffe who scored a try in the left corner.

An excellent touch-line conversion from full back Lawton made it 14-0 after 11 minutes.

Bury again botched the re-start when, in a moment of thoughtlessness, they were judged offside from a knock-on and Ormskirk kicked to the corner.

Another knock-on from the lineout gave Ormskirk an attacking scrum and, despite a strong Bury shove, they got the ball out to their big stand-off, who took "route-one" to bring Ormskirk back into the game with a converted try of their own, to make it 14-7 after 14 minutes.

However, from then, Bury maintained dominance in most aspects of play with supremacy in the scrum and in the contact area, both with and without the ball, and ran in 5 more unanswered tries in the first half to put them in complete control and, surely, a bonus-point victory was secured.

Those tries came courtesy of Leo Freschini, Noah Lawton, Peter Brindley, Alfie Campbell and Richard Walsh to give a half time score of 43-7.

The 2nd half started in a similar vein, with Alfie Campbell crossing for his second after 4 minutes, unconverted to make it 48-7.

For the next 10 minutes, Ormskirk enjoyed the better possession and territory, but enterprising play from scrum half Oscar Loftus and winger Destiny Achuo down the right touch line threatened the Ormskirk line, resulting in a goal line dropout.

Bury returned the kick with some slick handling, resulting in a try for Matt Kluwe.

Unconverted, 53-7 at the three-quarter mark.

5 minutes later, Ethan Marsh got his second try of the afternoon to make it 58-7.

Over the next 10 minutes, Ormskirk got the rub of the green as far as the refereeing decisions went and, as due reward for their efforts, crossed the Bury line for their second try and scoreline of 58-12.

As the final whistle approached, Bury regained the ascendancy straight from the restart and, in something of a fluke, although it was borne out of exerting pressure in defence, capitalised on some loose play from the visitors when the ball fortuitously popped up into the grateful arms of winger Joe Cooke, who was able to run it in under posts, from about 30 metres.

Lawton converted to bring about the end of the match and a final score of 65-12.

Player of the match was Leo Freschini.

Elsewhere, Bury 2nd XV had an excellent result on the road away at Fleetwood, running out winners 43-7 with 2 tries apiece from Joe Parker and Tom Cain and contributions from Callum O’Connor, Rory Andrews and Harry Jackson.

Player of the match was Harry Jackson.