Vikings given
● Huddersfield’s Shannon Wakeman aims to show the Vikings’ defence a clean pair of heels. ●
There was no way back from that, and it seemed the harder Widnes tried, the worse they became with the completion of a set of six beyond them more often than not.
Betts did not hold back in his assessment.
He said: “We came here pretty confident. We wanted to carry on with the same kind of attitude we showed against Wigan last week and a few performances before that.
“But it was disgraceful, to be honest. I was embarrassed by the team’s effort and skill.
“We just didn’t keep hold of the ball. We got a couple of defensive reads wrong with our numbers and they just fell over the line.
“But the main thing was we failed to build pressure and just kept giving them the ball back.
“With a short turnaround coming into the game, we talked about the need to complete our sets to conserve energy but we completed at 40-odd per cent in the first half. They’re the kind of things that can break you in half.
“You’re putting yourself in a position where they’ve got lots of energy and you’re scrambling.
“We had some chances and bombed 18 points. We then ran out of energy on the back of our lack of completion.
“If you don’t play with the ball, you are always going to be on the back foot and we looked like a side that had lost all direction.
“There was no cohesion in our attack because we hadn’t any ball.”
With the Vikings consigned to playing in The (Middle 8) Qualifiers, Betts knows it was a standard of performance that simply won’t do moving forward.
He added: “We know we’re in the Middle 8s and we’ve got to stick together. We’ve got to play better than that; it was atrocious.
“I’ve got to look at myself and my staff and see if we’ve prepared well enough.
“I’m looking for a response. They’re not happy with what they’ve done and at the moment everybody is emotional because it’s not acceptable.
“In the last four weeks we’ve been playing all right and it’s baffling that we could serve up something like that.”