Grand thrill for Hornets players
HALTON Farnworth Hornets will have an active role in this year’s Grand Final after the RFL confirmed they will walk out onto the pitch with one of the finalists.
Club chairman, Brian Tobin, said: “This is a tremendous honour for our club and it’s the opportunity of a lifetime for 15 of our players from the U7 to U11 teams.
“To walk out at Old Trafford in front of a sell-out crowd of around 75,000 will be an amazing experience for them.
“This is the perfect end to a magnificent season. We thought 2015 would be had to beat but this year we are having one of our most successful seasons on the pitch, our annual festival was a roaring success and now a trip to Old Trafford!”
Sunday, September 22, 2002 THE final match of the Vikings’ first season in Super League was a 52-22 home win against Halifax, avenging the early season defeat at the Halton Stadium.
Left wing pair Adam Hughes and Paul Devlin each scored hat-tricks – Hughes finishing in the league’s top 10 tryscorers – after Devlin had opened the floodgates in the first minute. Played in a carnival atmosphere, the ball saw more air than usual as a relaxed Widnes built a healthy early lead before clinching the win with a late burst, after a brief rally by Halifax.
The scoring was completed by Stuart Spruce, Phil Cantillon, Chris Percival and Mike Briggs while Hughes added six conversions. ● Widnes Vikings: On This Day is available now priced £9.99 from the Vikings Superstore. WIDNES VIKINGS ........................ 8 ST HELENS .................................. 21
WIDNES’S final home game of the season ended in disappointment as they went down 21-8 to local rivals St Helens on Sunday afternoon.
If the result itself wasn’t enough to leave a bad taste in the mouth of of the Vikings players and their fans, the dismissals of skipper Kevin Brown and winger Patrick Ah Van probably did the job.
The incident which led to the red cards occurred just a few minutes from full-time and seemed innocuous enough to start with. However, it escalated as Brown traded blows with Saints back-rower Joe Greenwood and numerous players ran in to create a melee.
Greenwood was sin-binned for his part in the affair with Ah Van perhaps particularly unlucky to be given his marching orders.
But in truth the game was up for Widnes by then with the points already destined for the visitors.
Vikings boss Denis Betts claimed to have missed the incident as he made his way down from the gantry. However, he was less than impressed with the game’s overall quality.
He said: “It looked like a frustrating game throughout and the players were just getting a bit edgy with each other. There were three very poor performances out there today.
“They’ve got some very good players and we were off our step and if you are off your step then you get caught out. We have to have better execution and more skill and it wasn’t there.
“We’ve been in the fight but we’ve lacked the ability to get on top of sides on a consistent basis.”
The seeds of of Saints’ win were sown in the opening quarter of the contest.
Keiron Cunningham’s men were much quicker out of the blocks than their opponents and opened their account after just three minutes when winger Adam Swift burst clear from deep inside his own half and had too much gas for the Vikings defence on a 80-metre run to the line.
Luke Walsh added the extras to Swift’s try and quickly established another platform for his team with a raking 40/20 kick.
The resulting pressure saw Swift dive over for his second try as smart passing outflanked the Vikings’ right side defence.
Walsh added a simple penalty goal on 14 minutes to give his side a 12-0 lead before Widnes had established any kind of foothold in opposition territory.
When they did finally manage to get some field position, resolute Saints defence kept the Vikings at bay.
Substitute Aaron Heremaia went close but was held up over the tryline but Widnes’s first really clear-cut chance didn’t arrive until six minutes before the break.
Full-back Rhys Hanbury cut through the Saints line like a knife through butter but couldn’t find the supporting Brown with the right pass when a try was there for the taking.
Just before the interval, the Vikings did finally get their side of the scoreboard ticking when they engineered an overlap up the left and Ah Van contemptuously swatted away Walsh on his way to the line.
At 12-4 down, Widnes could really have done with coming up with the first score of the second