Walsall's development team returned to action on Tuesday afternoon as they played host to Bolton Wanderers Reserves in their latest Central League outing of the season.
Often managed by first-team player/coach Mat Sadler, a young line-up was selected with some of the highly-rated prospects along with several of the under-15s getting an opportunity to impress ahead of the first-team's final three games of the campaign.
The Saddlers and Trotters are no strangers to each other, with the two sides meeting just a few weeks ago in a match that saw Bolton ease to victory by five-goals-to-one, giving the young Saddlers more than enough reason to even the score.
WALSALL TEAM
Hedge; Baldwin, Beckford, Reynolds, A.Trialist, Sawyers, Leydon, Shaw, Maher, Edwards, Moseley
Substitutes: Kilroy; Morean, Timmons, Wilkes
Tuesday's match saw the Saddlers start the game brightly, with hot-prospect Ronan Maher going on to have a couple of goal-scoring opportunities; the first seeing him force Wanderers 'keeper Luke Hutchinson into a save with his legs, before seeing an effort cannon off the post moments later.
Walsall's next effort on goal went the way of Jaiy Leydon, who did well to get the better of his marker before driving towards the edge of the area and forcing Hutchinson into another fine save.
As the Saddlers continued their strong start to the game, the first goal of the afternoon also went their way as A.Trialist continued the add his mark to the proud history of the Trialist family by crashing an effort home - the midfield man unleashing a shot from 30-yards out.
The visitors weren't without goal-scoring opportunities of their own and went fairly close to levelling the scores some six-minutes after the Saddlers' opener as one of their two trialists forced Zach Hedge into a comfortable but necessary save.
Walsall got back on the attack a few minutes later as Maher and Lucas Edwards combined to see Edwards attempt an overhead kick which failed to test the man between the sticks as a defender read the play and blocked the ball.
Bolton were steadily growing into the game and, shortly after another of their trialists had forced Hedge into a superb double save, they went on to level the scores as Finlay Lockett sent an effort into the top corner, well out of reach of the young Saddlers stopper.
HT
|
WFC
|
1-1
|
BWFC
|
Walsall opened the second-half on the attack and saw strong claims for a penalty ignored as the referee instead opted to award them a free-kick on the edge of the area, though this was eventually cleared.
Ronan Maher, who continues to have a fine season despite the team's overall lack of progress, was the next Saddler to see an effort denied as his shot was blocked by an alert Bolton defender.
Possibly buoyed by their denial of Maher, the visitors went down the other end of the pitch and saw a Finlay Lockett effort drift just past the post, the midfielder unlucky to go wide as his attempted chip could have put Hedge in trouble.
The visitors' next goal-scoring opportunity came via Matt Tweedley, who sent a long-distance effort towards goal, with goalkeeper Hedge doing well to remain calm and gather the ball before any damage was done.
Walsall continued to be forced back by their opponents and went on to concede another shot on goal as Mitchell Henry found space and unleashed a curling effort towards goal, the shot not really troubling Hedge who again made the save.
As the match continued towards full-time the Saddlers went in search of another, possibly match-winning, goal as Maher did well to read the play and intercept a loose pass before forcing the goalkeeper into a superb save.
There were no further goals as the teams had to settle for a share of the spoils.
FT
|
WFC
|
1-1
|
BWFC
|
A.Trialist (20')
|
Lockett (40')
|
AT
|
Ray Hall Lane
|