Just happy

coach Rick Stone was delighted with the scoreline.

“If you’d have given me 40-0 before the game, I would have snatched your hand off,” Stone said.

“The scoreline is one we were looking for obviously in the context of the competition.

“It was not a pretty game, there were a lot of errors from both teams and there are some things we need to look at but I’m happy to come away with a nil scoreline.

“We weren’t perfect defensively but we managed to do enough to repel them on our line.

“In the second half I thought we got a bit ahead of ourselves and, moving forward, we have got to got realise we need to play for 80 minutes.

“If we can win next week, we will hopefully secure our place (in the eight).”

The Giants, of course, ended up last season scrapping for Super League survival in the Middle Eights.

Widnes coach Denis Betts branded his team “disgraceful” and “atrocious” after their defeat by the Giants.

The Vikings were formally condemned to the Qualifiers after the defeat.

“It was disgraceful to be honest,” Betts said. “I was embarrassed by the team’s effort and skill.

“We had chances in the first couple of sets and dropped the ball and bombed 18 points. We then ran out of energy on the back of our lack of completion. We gave them about 28 extra tackles.

“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.”

Widnes centre Chris Bridge