Here is everything Widnes coach Allan Coleman said to the press after the Vikings’ 50-12 pre-season friendly defeat at Warrington.
They fielded a strong 13, but did you get out of that what you needed?
Yeah, I think we did. We spoke with (referee) Jack Smith before the game, me and Sam (Burgess) and he asked what do you want from me, and he just said everything’s got to be quick. We’d worked all pre-season on trying to be controlling but when you’ve got Danny Walker and Cai Taylor-Wray, who we’ve had playing for us, everything was so quick and we just couldn’t handle that. That’s where we got hit. I thought in certain aspects we were really good at times and thought how we played to them and we asked questions of them, and we got quite a bit out of that. We completed high. That broken line, that quick ruck it just got us each time, and their execution on each. Every opportunity they got they finished. They got five chances in the first half and scored five tries. We didn’t lose faith and I just thought we’ll not come against that, I don’t think we’ll come against something like that, we’ll learn a lot from that.
Will you take positives going in to London Broncos?
100%. They’ll be very similar to that. They’ll want to play in Championship like Warrington played tonight where everything’s ‘you can’t contain us, we’re just going to keep coming, keep coming and we’ll wait for a chink in the armour and then we’ll execute it. We might have to start defending a little bit tighter and trust our energy to push and maybe use the touchline as our 14th man, so we’ve learned a lot.
Have you looked at a couple of different combinations?
We’ve tried. We have five lads missing with Tom Gilmore, (Adam) Lawton, (Danny) Langtree, (Morgan) McWhirter and people like that, they’re quite influential in our team, especially Gilmore. It’s interesting. It’s give us a bit of a headache because there’s a lot of thought of what we need to get right, like how do we handle the pace of the game like Warrington did, I think London will go down that route. We tried some combinations, so hopefully it’ll give us an outlook of what will probably work for us better.
It was the first return for Jordan Abdull after more than 12 months out…
I was really happy with him for his first game. He looked like he was enjoying it, which is a big thing for him. And if he can enjoy his rugby, he’ll just get better and better. 100% he will. He tried some things, some things didn’t come off, he took quite a bit of ball up to line as well. They had to stop him and he’ll get sharper just doing that. I thought first 15-20 minutes I thought we looked really sharp with him and Joey (Lyons). We finish on a scrum line and then we play on back shape of it. He’s travelling round and coming in to like so really pleasing, and when come off I said how was that and he said ‘yeah, I felt great’ so really pleased to see him get through it.
Nathan Connell did a 20 minute stint at full back…
He’s been doing a bit in training there. It’s difficult because last year we had Ryan Ince and Mike Butt and Rhys Williams and they’ve very powerful carriers of the ball so they don’t get moved much. They go direct, they’re quite physical guys. Nathan’s totally different, he’s quite lightweight but he tries to find space so that’s why we’ve kept him at full back as an option, I thought he struggled a little bit in the first half with the physicality of the starting 13 Warrington put out. But I think second half once he got to full back he’s quite free, he likes space, he likes running in to space, he gave a great ball to Mike Butt to score his try. So there’s options there, that’s the beauty of him. He can play in numerous positions. It’s not helped losing Jake Maizen two weeks ago. We’d done all pre-season with him there. I thought Matt Fleming was really good, he took everything, we never looked under pressure, he took every high ball, he defended well and made good metres, he was one of our highest metre makers, but we’re still looking for maybe another one in that position.
Did you get any injuries?
We didn’t get any injuries and I know Warrington didn’t, so it served its purpose in that aspect of the game.
How do you go about preparing to face a London side that people are saying are going to be maybe the best team the Championship has ever seen?
It’s difficult because if they do play any friendlies, I don’t think we’ll see any footage of it. We’re going with mindset of we’ve got to focus everything on us. It is a really strong squad, and that squad’s also unproven as well at Championship level and English rugby, if that makes sense. There’s no given that they are going to be what they say they are, they’re certainly going to be a fantastic team that’s for sure, but we’ve got nothing to lose. And I think the key thing for us is we go and show what we’re about. Welcome them to Championship rugby because it’s totally different than what them guys have been playing and most of them from the NRL and Queensland Cup and it’s totally different. It’s going to be a cold Sunday in January, is it going to be perfect for them? Maybe not. They might make me eat my words, they might come out like a steam train and blow teams away, but I’d rather play them now than when it gets warmed and they get five or 10 games in because I think they will get better and better as the comp goes along.
2026 is different with the 20-team Championship, what does it mean for you, what are your goals?
We’ve just got to be more consistent than last year. Without sounding like a coach who moans about injuries, when I had everyone available we won most games and when I didn’t, we lost most games unfortunately. We’ve got to have a bit of luck. I think we’ve got a better squad. We just need to be more consistent. We need to be much better at home and we need to be very competitive away. We need to get back into that mindset of being a really difficult team to beat. Even if we don’t win the game, we never go away. I think the year before we only got beat once by more than 12 points, and if you can keep a team within 12 points to the last five minutes, you’re still in that game. So mentally we need to be better and more consistent than anything.
How close were you to having Matt Dufty?
We certainly had a good conversation. We expressed our interest, we met Matt and spoke with him and he was a great guy. But obviously he had a big decision to make and I know his partner’s pregnant and she was in Australia, so unfortunately he chose what was right for him and his family which we fully understand. We were deadly serious and we were keen to bring him in, and I just think you get a superstar like in the Championship. We’ve seen what he does in Super League and so he’d certainly have been a massive plus for us a club.
Does that show the ambition of the club that they tried to get Matt in?
Yeah, the board’s been brilliant with me. We look at the clubs some like Doncaster spent well, London, Oldham, Sheffield have spent well. I think we’ve spent well. I think we’re just more consistent. If I lose a middle, I don’t have to panic and go in to loan market like I did last year. If I lose a back row I don’t have to panic and go in to loan market; centres we’re covered, halves we’re probably covered when Gilmore’s back. So that to me is knowing that’ll bring results more consistently within a squad. But we still need that X factor. The club’s quite openly said, if you see somebody we’ll back you. So that’s really pleasing for me as a coach. And we’re a club that’s not been in debt for a long time now, which is key for me as a coach.
We’ve got to do it the right way and show we’re growing. If you look back two years, we had no youth, now we’ve got a youth, we’ve got a development academy, we’re applying for a Super League academy, hopefully next 12 months. So we’re going in the right way and that’s the wya to go. There’s so many clubs, and I don’t mean to speak bad of them, but sometimes when you overspend it doesn’t work for you and then it jeopardises everything you’ve built over the years. We’re doing it right and we’ve got a lot of ambitions and that ambition might take a bit longer than what people want it to, but we’ll do it the right way.
You mentioned about replacements and full-backs, is that pursuit ongoing?
We’re speaking with somebody at the moment. We’re speaking with a couple, one in particular that we’re trying to get over the line and hopefully we’ll get a decision on that. We’re not that club anymore if we lose somebody we’ll just get by, we can’t afford to be like that. We need to bring competition, but it’s got to be quality and whoever we bring in will certainly be a quality addition for us.
Is it just full back you’re looking at?
At the minute, yeah. With bringing Jack (Houghton) in now, and Adam Lawton and Morgan McWhirter coming back we’ve got nine middles there. So we’ll be alright there. The relationship I have with Sam (Burgess), he’s been really good. It gave us a great look at some of their quality players today in case we are unfortunate with injuries, he’s quite openly said we would love them to come to you, so that’s a good thing for us.
