Inu is in to take on Whitehaven in Vikings debut
WIDNES centre Krisnan Inu will make his debut for the club in this Friday’s friendly against Whitehaven at Halton Stadium (KO 8pm).
Former New Zealand international Inu joined the Vikings from Catalans Dragons in the off-season and has only recently begun training with the side having secured the necessary paperwork.
He is one of a host of likely first-teamers who will be getting a first run-out of 2018 and it’s also likely to be their last before Super League starts in early February.
Head coach Denis Betts has decided to have a relatively light preseason fixture schedule before the big kick-off.
He said: “It’s the one pre-season game we’ve got other than the Warrington game over Christmas; we’ve not tried to overload ourselves this year.
“We lost a number of players last year in pre-season so we’re being a little bit wary. I want to start the season with a strong group.
“To train well you have to have people on their feet so we’ll just use this Whitehaven game to get people back into contact.
“St Helens didn’t want to play the Karalius Cup this year and we decided not to fill that hole but we’ll sort our training out accordingly.
“The physicality in the squad allows us to do things in training we haven’t been able to do in the past. I’m not running kids against first team players now; I’m running men against men.
“Our staff are smart enough to understand the levels we need to be hitting to be ready for the first Super League game against Catalans here.”
Widnes are likely to give the players who missed the festive friendly first bite at the cherry on Friday night and then rotate the squad more in the second half of the match.
Betts has close to a full roster to choose from with just a couple of players not yet ready for action.
He added: “Lots of players are back in the mix.
“The lads that have come back and didn’t play against Warrintgton will play in this one – the likes of Chris Houston, Charly Runciman, Rhys Hanbury, Krisnan Inu, Danny Craven, Pat Ah Van and Lloyd White.
“At the moment we haven’t got Alex Gerrard and Gil Dudson.
“Gil had back surgery at the end of last season and he’s on course for February sometime. He won’t make the start of the season but he won’t be far off.
“Alex is training pretty well with the physios at the moment and is on course for the start of the season.”
Tickets for the Whitehaven game cost £10 for adults, £8 for concessions and £5 for juniors. ●