Widnes forward Ryan Lannon looks to have played his last game for the club after being missing from training for several weeks.
Lannon, 29, last featured for the Vikings in the previous game at York at the start of April, but he has missed the three games since with speculation online linking him to a move to Oldham.
He is out of contract at the end of the year, and so is free to speak to other clubs about his future. Last season, Kieran Dixon and Ant Walker were let go by the Vikings mid-year having not been offered new deals and subsequently pursuing offers elsewhere.
However, it doesn’t appear that Lannon’s future plans have been the issue. When asked about where Lannon had been for the past few weeks, head coach Allan Coleman expressed his frustration
He said: “You tell me. I’ve not seen Ryan. The situation is Ryan has been unable to play, and he’s not been training.”
Lannon’s unavailability has been a blow to a Widnes squad that is down to the bare bones. The former Salford and Hull KR man only arrived two-thirds of the way through last season from Halifax.
Widnes squad down to the bare bones
Coleman had no Warrington dual-registration players available to him at York, and was forced to name winger Rhys Williams on the bench, only the second time in the Wales international’s 319-game club career that he had been used as a substitute.
And there were further blows dealt at York, with hooker Matty Fozard suffering a suspected broken hand, that forced him off in the final quarter, while prop Liam Kirk didn’t return after a bout of sickness following his first stint.
Coleman added: “It’s looking like he’s broken his hand, so that’s another loss. So we’re down to 17 players with nothing coming in. We’ve just got to get on with it, take a leaf out of Salford’s book and keep fighting.”
Widnes have now won just one of their last seven matches after going down 26-12 at York, although it was much more of a contest than the 1895 Cup quarter-final meeting at the beginning of the month.
The Vikings enjoyed decent amounts of territory and possession without being able to convert that in to points, and they were punished when Liam Harris stepped past Dan Murray to open the scoring on 15 minutes. Connor Bailey stretched York’s lead before Widnes hit back on the half hour mark. Joe Edge, playing at full-back for the first time since Neil Belshaw’s interim reign in charge, joined the line to cause problems and found Jack Owens, who got a nice pass out of the back door for Mike Butt to finish acrobatically in the corner.
But a nice move ended in a Joe Brown score before the break and when Ata Hingano waltzed through off a Paul McShane pass on 51 minutes, the writing was on the wall for Widnes at 22-6.
York did always seem to have an extra gear in them, though the sin-binning of Jesse Dee for a tip tackle on Liam Bent triggered a spell of vulnerability, and after Ryan Ince had got over in the left corner, Widnes did ask some questions of the Knights, without being able to pull another score back that may have set up a grandstand finish.
As it was, York had the final say, Ben Jones-Bishop scoring on the hooter to perhaps give the score a more one-sided look than the contest merited.
READ MORE: Coleman hopes for Widnes reinforcements after cup clash boost
Johnstone return planned against Hunslet
The possible absence of Fozard will be a significant blow to Coleman, who does at least hope to have Jordan Johnstone back available for next week’s game at Hunslet.
Brett Bailey was 18th man at York, while Matt Fleming, Declan Patton, Max Roberts and Lewis Hall were the other absent members of the first-team squad, alongside Lannon.
Although new signings have been hinted at, Widnes seem no closer to drafting anybody in, with the focus being on finding players available to come in not just for this campaign, but for 2026 too. That’s been compounded by the situation at Warrington, suffering injury problems of their own, that has meant a limited number of players being available.
Luke Thomas was in a sling after picking up an injury playing for Widnes against Oldham, while Cai Taylor-Wray is sidelined with a hamstring injury sustained playing for Warrington’s reserves.
Oli Leyland will surely now come in to contention for the Wolves first team following the injuries to both George Williams and Marc Sneyd, and only Ben Hartill and Lucas Green, both players to have previously featured for Widnes, were names of note to feature in Warrington’s reserve side against St Helens at the weekend.
