Battling Vikings pay a late penalty
ST HELENS .................................. 12 WIDNES VIKINGS ...................... 10 A COMMITTED effort by the Vikings proved not quite good enough as they went down 12-10 to St Helens at Langtree Park last Friday night.
All that separated the sides at the end of a hard-fought and fullblooded encounter was a Mark Percival penalty slotted over seven minutes from time after Matt Whitley had caught Saints full-back Jonny Lomax with a high tackle.
It was a frustrating night for Widnes fans and for head coach Denis Betts who had no issues with the winning penalty award but felt his charges were a little slow out of the blocks.
Betts said: “Matt Whitley’s pretty honest and he said he caught him high.
“Jonny’s just used his footwork like he does and there was already cover coming across but Matt lunged and caught him around his head.
“It was a full-blooded game and they were desperate to keep moving forward and push hard to get into the top four.
“We’re a side that’s turning out some really good performances. You look at our last five or six weeks and we’ve been in really tight games.
“We’ve had some tough calls and there have been some poor decisions on our part too. But we’re defending really well and creating opportunities.
“We wasted some energy by starting poorly.
“We’ve started poorly in the last couple of games.
“We needed that energy at the end of the game and losing Gil Dudson killed our rotation. He’s been playing well and his second stint has usually been really good.
“We had some good opportunities but they defended their line really well.
“We came here and we thought we’d done enough to win; we created enough opportunities but we leave without any points. “It’s a tough one to take.” Errors and penalties characterised the Vikings’ slow start and coach Betts had reason to be displeased at the ease with the which Saints stand-off Jordan Turner forced his way over on three minutes.
Any thoughts that Widnes had gone to Langtree Park to rollover were quickly dispelled as they went on the attack.
Charly Runciman had a try disallowed after following up a Kevin Brown kick with Patrick Ah Van being adjudged, perhaps harshly, to have hampered opposite winger Shannon McDonnell on the chase.
Full-back Rhys Hanbury also looked a certain scorer but was somehow held up over the line.
Saints looked set to increase their lead on 19 minutes but Han-
bury did brilliantly to stop ex-Viking Jack Owens in the corner.
Almost immediately, Widnes swept up the other end and right winger Corey Thompson finished off at the flag after Lloyd White and Brown had combined superbly on a break up the middle. Hanbury’s fine goal gave the Vikings a 6-4 lead.
A nice round-the-man offload from Dudson sent Whitley racing away as the Vikings continued to press, but the move fizzled out on the back of a Runciman knock-on.
It looked likely Betts’s men would take their narrow lead into the break but Saints had other ideas and McDonnell sent centre Matty Fleming over on the right with Percival’s goal giving the home side a 10-6 advantage at half-time.
Widnes started the second half almost as poorly as they had started the first but this time their defence held firm.
The desire of both teams was there for all to see with players scrambling furiously to save their respective trylines.
The next score did not arrive until the 56 minute mark and it came the Vikings’ way.
Jack Buchanan and Joe Mellor were prominent in the build-up but it was Brown who suppled the killer pass which allowed Ah Van to crash in at the left corner to level things up at 10-10.
As the tension ratcheted up, the combatants jockeyed for position with set-completion becoming the order of the day.
Widnes had their chances at the Saints end but didn’t quite have the composure to crack their opponents’ defence.
Whitley’s high shot gave Keiron Cunningham’s men their opportunity and Widnesian Percival kept his cool to send the ball between the posts.
The Vikings tried hard to pull the fat out of the fire in the closing minutes but in the end, time was their enemy.