NEXT UP:
Saturday, June 14, 2003 HALIFAX were despatched 48-20 at The Shay with early tries from Shane Millard and Robert Relf converted by Jules O’Neill, who also added a drop goal.
Fax later scored from their first attack but Widnes winger Chris Giles replied with a brace either side of another home try before the teams swapped penalties.
Dean Lawford added a try and a drop goal before the one-sided affair continued with Daniel Frame, Jason Demetriou and Adam Hughes going over with O’Neill finishing with seven goals. ● WIDNES VIKINGS: On This Day is available now at £9.99 from the Vikings Superstore. CATALANS DRAGONS .............. 32 WIDNES VIKINGS ...................... 12
WIDNES VIKINGS ran out of juice in the last quarter of the game as they went down 32-12 to Catalans Dragons in Perpignan last Saturday evening.
With 20 minutes to go, the Vikings were still well in the contest at 14-12 but the amount of energy they had expended in covering for their own mistakes inevitably took its toll, especially on a committed but inexperienced middle unit.
In his first game in charge following the sacking of Denis Betts, interim head coach Francis Cummins could see his players had a dig but a lack of quality in certain areas combined with handling errors proved their downfall.
He said: “I’m really happy with how hard we worked but we caused ourselves to work a lot harder than we needed to.
“I thought our middles were fantastic with the effort they put in but you have to be a bit smarter when you play against Catalans who are a huge side.
“We disrupted them early and if we’d taken a few more of our chances would have put them under real pressure.
“But they had too many long periods where they had all the possession and we had to keep going to the well.
“We had some young lads in there who did great but I knew they didn’t have many minutes in them, which is where we are at the moment.
“They beat us in the energy battle. I think we’re fitter than them but we had to do many more efforts because they were smarter than us.
“That’s what you get with the players they can call on or recruit at the drop of a hat.
“Having said that, we have to find a way of beating them. Finishing our sets in a way that put pressure on them would have helped but for whatever reason we didn’t get that today.
“I can think of half-a-dozen times when we simply gave them the ball and you can’t afford to do that against these sides. I’m positive that we’ll get there.” ● BETFRED SUPER LEAGUE
Cummins gave a debut to Salford loanee Weller Hauraki, Rhys Hanbury returned at full-back after injury and a youthful pack featured both Chapelhow twins as starting props with Academy product Owen Farnworth on the bench.
A vociferous Widnes following inside Stade Gilbert Brutus saw their side produce some solid tackling early on and then go on the offensive.
A raid into the Dragons ‘20’ saw the Vikings take the lead when Australian veteran Greg Bird made a hash of trying to clean up an Aaron Hermaia grubber-kick into the in-goal, allowing Jay Chapelhow to ground the loose ball with Danny Craven’s successful conversion making it 6-0 on 10 minutes.
Catalans full-back Tony Gigot spilled a bomb gifting an opportunity to Ted Chapelhow but he had the ball dislodged as he crossed the whitewash. However, from the resulting scrum, Hanbury joined the line and ghosted through to increase the lead by four points.
Widnes continued to create chances and thought they had gone further ahead on 24 minutes but Matt Whitley’s follow-up of a short Craven kick was ruled out for offside.
An error invited the home side back into the match and they accepted it with thanks as Gigot latched onto a Bird kick to pull six points back and centre Brayden Williame levelled things up after profiting from a ricochet to touch down.
Just before the interval, scrumhalf Josh Drinkwater nudged the Dragons into a 12-10 lead with a 30 metre penalty goal.
After a cagey start to the second period, Widnes got back on level terms when winger Patrick Ah Van booted over a straightforward penalty after giant French forward Julian Bousquet had flattened Jay Chapelhow off the ball and got himself sin-binned for his trouble.
Unfortunately, the Vikings failed to take advantage of their extra man and the sheer size and power of the Dragons up front began to take its toll with their strong bench coming to the fore.
Gigot made a huge play for his team by regathering his own short goalline drop-out and racing 60 metres upfield and Drinkwater again edged his side ahead with a penalty.
Former Wigan hooker Michael McIlorum then played a key hand as he set up two converted tries in the space of four minutes with Remi Casty and Kenny Edwards the respective beneficiaries.
At 26-12 up, Catalans now had a a vice-like grip on the game and they ended the argument three minutes from time when a kick forward on a free play was touched down by winger Fouad Yaha to blow the score out six points further.
The defeat cemented the Vikings’ place at the bottom of Betfred Super League and they need some of their big-hitters back sooner rather than later.