Great for me to get a run out at full-back – Olly
● VIKINGS youngster Olly Ashall-Bott was reasonably pleased with his own game after getting his first run of the season in his preferred position of full-back against Wakefield on Sunday.
The 20 year-old looked to be one of his team’s more potent attacking threats against Trinity and he wants to build on the weekend’s showing.
He told the club website: “It was great for me to finally get a run out at full-back. I found out that I was playing there a few days before the game and started training in sessions during the week. It’s a little weird at first as you’ve got to get used to all the different plays from full-back but I caught up quite quickly.
“I’m not usually the type of player to come out and say whether I played well or not, but personally I think I went OK.
“I made a few mistakes early on in the game but I got over those quite quickly and got into the game. I could have gone over for a try, and that maybe could have changed the game a little bit in the first half, but it wasn’t to be.”
As the Vikings prepare for a tough trip to Hull tomorrow night, Ashall-Bott also gave an insight into the mood inside the camp as they suffered their 11th successive Betfred Super League defeat, going down 44-22 at the Mobile Rocket Stadium.
He added: “Sunday was very frustrating, I think. We are hurting each other at the minute by not doing the little things right, but we have to learn from it.
“We all know our jobs in the team; it’s just a case of us putting that into place on the field like we do at training during the week.
“Hull, like Wakefield on Sunday, are another massive side. We know that we have got to go there on Friday and make sure we match their pack throughout the game.
“It’s a tough challenge but we’re focusing on getting a result.”
Saturday, June 28 2003 THE highlight of a highly-polished display against Leeds was a 75 metre try from Paul Devlin to snuff out a Leeds comeback and see the Vikings through to a 29-14 win.
First half tries from Stuart Spruce, Julian O’Neill and Adam Hughes and solid defence had saw the Vikings take a 16-8 lead into the interval as they exploited the errors forced from the visitors.
Devlin claimed his first try in the 51st minute with Jules O’Neill’s third conversion stretching the lead to 14 points.
A Leeds response created a sense of danger until Devlin collected an errant Sinfield kick and raced away through the defence to score the try which head coach Neil Kelly said was “worth the admission money alone”.
With victory assured, Dean Lawford added a drop goal for good measure. ● WIDNES VIKINGS: On This Day is available now at £9.99 from the Vikings Superstore. ● ● WAKEFIELD TRINITY ............... 44 WIDNES VIKINGS ...................... 22 that the regular season is his current priority.
He said: “In the first half we RECORD 11th successive had six fewer sets than a big league defeat more or less Wakefield team and we used a lot condemned Widnes to of energy. We were quite poor at playing in the Super League the end of our sets. Qualifiers in 2018. “We’ve just got a handful of
The 44-22 loss at Wakefield did people who are coming up with not offer much succour to longtheir own thing or giving the suffering Vikings fans with Trinity opposition handouts. having the game in the bag by “I thought Wakefield were half-time having established a good but we gave them a big leg22-0 lead at The Mobile Rocket
up.“Until we’re mathematically Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Widnes’s second half perforunable to get out of the situation, mance may have papered over we keep going. the cracks to a degree but the “I’ve been looking at the squad club’s interim head coach Francis since I came into the job to see Cummins will be well aware that who’s going to be the next combihe needs to find the right formula nation. People are getting opporbefore The Qualifiers start in tunities and some have taken August. them while some haven’t.
For the moment, however, “We’ll get to a point where the Cummins is sticking to his line team will become better for it.
A“At the moment we’re doing some good things but we’re also doing some silly and uncharacteristic things which is making us work twice as hard. “The pleasing thing was we showed a little bit more strike than we’ve had but we’re still finding hard ways to play the game.”
Cummins made a number of changes to the side that lost to Salford Red Devils last time out.
In the forwards, prop Gil Dudson returned after a long injury absence while Danny Walker, Macgraff Leuluai and Sam Wilde came in on the bench.
Krisnan Inu made his longawaited comeback at right centre with Stefan Marsh back in harness on the wing and Olly AshallBott getting the nod at full-back.
In a game played in hot conditions, it was nip-and-tuck in the opening exchanges.
Wakefield gave notice of their threat when they engineered a chance for Ben Jones-Bishop but the winger spilled a difficult pass.
The Vikings’ best chance of opening the scoring came when Ashall-Bott, arguably their main attacking threat on the day, jinked through from close-range but he lost the ball at the foot of the posts.
On their next possession, Trinity struck from deep.
Left winger Tom Johnstone broke from inside his own half and bamboozled the Widnes defence with a change of direction as he crossed for a superb solo four-pointer.
Trinity were taking control and it became 10-0 on 20 minutes when Jones-Bishop outjumped Charly Runciman to score from a crossfield kick.