Fixtures away at Bowdon have been tricky affairs over the past few seasons for Douglas and with a shuffled deck following victory over Northwich last time out, it made the prospect of bucking that losing trend on Saturday even tricker.

Simon Hoddinott, Liam Kirkpatrick and Mark Oldfield all missed out in the forwards while there was no Bryn Snellgrove or Sam McCord to add their influence in the backline.

Charlie Henthorn was unable to travel so even more shuffling occurred and Blake Everson, who has impressed since coming into the squad, was asked to do a job at inside centre with coach Phil Cringle coming onto the bench.

Douglas had come back from poor starts against Sandbach and Burnage recently to cause real problems in the second half. Bowdon, however, would be a different prospect if the Manx side let the game slip away in the opening half.

The Altrincham side showed why they have had such a good start to their season and scored a flurry of tries in the opening half an hour demonstrating perhaps the benefit of a more settled starting XV.

Whilst the Douglas scrum was sending Bowdon backwards, the lineout was also an opportunity for good first-phase possession, but all Douglas had to show for their endeavours was a penalty slotted by Nathan Robson.

Douglas lost the tireless tackling of Percy Hampton to a nasty-looking shoulder injury, only just after he'd had his head patched up following a clash of heads with the Bowdon left wing.

Just before the half-time whistle, Douglas had some sustained possession in the Bowdon 22 but a speculative pass out wide was intercepted by the Bowdon fly-half who ran the length of the pitch to score and leave the lead 43-3 at half-time.

Into the second period and the introduction of Cringle gave Douglas some impetus and a much-needed voice on the field.

The former London Scottish player shared the first receiver duties with Josh Duncan as Douglas offered some go-forward with ball in hand.

Nevertheless it wasn’t until Bowdon had extended their lead that Douglas got themselves over the try line.

After a penalty kicked to the corner, the lineout ball slipped through the hands of Blake Snell to the grateful Harry Cartwright who crashed through three tackles and dotted down.

Douglas had more time with the ball now, but Bowdon were much more clinical with theirs.

Bowdon added two final tries before Douglas finished the scoring with arguably the best worked try of the game.

Cringle took the ball by his boot laces which seemed to check the onrushing defence. His flick pass was timed to perfection as Kyle Martin charged through an inside gap like a train. After being stopped just short he popped the ball to Everson who grabbed the final consolation score as the game finished 67-15.

BEN EGGLESHAW