Following Sunday’s defeat at Featherstone Rovers, we would like to address our supporters with the following statement.
We accept that recent performances have been nowhere near the standard we all expect, and are not what anyone associated with the club want.
Having won our first four fixtures of the season, and experienced the fantastic support of our fans up and down the country, the seven defeats that have followed have been hugely disappointing and we appreciate a cause for concern.
As a club, we know that our performances need to be better than what you have witnessed over the last few weeks.
We have been transparent about the injuries that have negatively affected our squad so far this season, but would like to inform supporters on the current position of the personnel within the squad as we feel this will provide optimism as we look ahead for the remainder of the 2022 season.
Those injuries are unfortunately to some of the most influential players in our squad, as a significant number of those players would undoubtedly be selected in our matchday seventeen. This has caused substantial disruption to how we wish to play and subsequently the manner in which the team would wish to perform, however we accept the performances despite such injuries are simply unacceptable.
Full-back Jack Owens and stand-off Danny Craven have yet to play together and have both been unavailable for several weeks. This partnership between a full back and both half backs is absolutely vital to the attacking performance of any side, and with a combined number of 402 appearances, a vast amount of experience sorely missed.
We have been significantly disrupted in the forwards also, with both experienced players and young exciting players absent for large periods of the season so far. Shane Grady, Aaron Brown, Levy Nzoungou and Tyler Dupree to name a few, are players we hoped would have provided a great blend of experience and enthusiasm needed to provide a platform for the rest of the side.
Disappointingly, we haven’t been able to select these players in combination at any stage of the season, all players who when fit would certainly be in strong contention for selection. These absences have placed a significant amount of pressure on less experienced members of the squad who have worked tirelessly but would no doubt benefit from having more experience to support them.
Jake Spedding, Ryan Ince, Adam Lawton, Joe Edge were all players also unavailable for the recent Featherstone game who would all be in contention to make the 17-man squad under normal circumstances.
We recognise that other clubs may be in a similar situation with regards to injuries and that we still need to maintain a much higher level of performance than we have done even with the current circumstances.
With a week off now until we face Whitehaven at home, we are anticipating to have all players back to fitness for the game apart from long-term absentees Shane Grady and Levy Nzoungou, as well as Jake Spedding and Jack Owens as the latter recovers from knee surgery.
We are confident the return of influential playmakers such as Danny Craven and Aaron Brown in addition to forwards Adam Lawton and Tyler Dupree will put the squad in a much stronger position going into the Whitehaven game and beyond.
We are continually working to identify and add players to the squad, which is not always easy given the demands placed on most squads. We recognise that the nature of the short-term loans and dual registration is not always ideal, however we will continue to assess the market and strengthen the squad when possible.
There is still a lot of work to do even with our full squad available, and we can assure our supporters that we will strive to get back to our best no matter what the circumstances.
We are currently in the process of recruiting a new head coach, and appreciate your patience as we speak to candidates in order to find the right man for the job to lead Widnes Vikings forward.
Our main goal for this league season remains the same, to finish the campaign in the play-off positions to put our club in the strongest position possible with regards to potential restructuring of the league system in the coming years.
We know that we need your backing to turn our form around and get back to the standard that we all know we can reach, so we would like to assure you that we are doing everything we can to return to that and ask that we stick together through this difficult period with better times to come this year.
Enough said i suppose. They recognise things are bad and are hoping to make it better lets hope other teams get as many injuries
Right you are
I will be at the next home game as usual
Cant wait
Lets get a decent crowd in
Laughable
You can't ask for more than that to be honest. Rather them get the right coach even though Delta is available. 🥖🥖🥖👍 But he might complain about the board members unless they go Pascals Pinkies 😂
Following Sunday’s defeat at Featherstone Rovers, we would like to address our supporters with the following statement.
We accept that recent performances have been nowhere near the standard we all expect, and are not what anyone associated with the club want.
Having won our first four fixtures of the season, and experienced the fantastic support of our fans up and down the country, the seven defeats that have followed have been hugely disappointing and we appreciate a cause for concern.
As a club, we know that our performances need to be better than what you have witnessed over the last few weeks.
We have been transparent about the injuries that have negatively affected our squad so far this season, but would like to inform supporters on the current position of the personnel within the squad as we feel this will provide optimism as we look ahead for the remainder of the 2022 season.
Those injuries are unfortunately to some of the most influential players in our squad, as a significant number of those players would undoubtedly be selected in our matchday seventeen. This has caused substantial disruption to how we wish to play and subsequently the manner in which the team would wish to perform, however we accept the performances despite such injuries are simply unacceptable.
Full-back Jack Owens and stand-off Danny Craven have yet to play together and have both been unavailable for several weeks. This partnership between a full back and both half backs is absolutely vital to the attacking performance of any side, and with a combined number of 402 appearances, a vast amount of experience sorely missed.
We have been significantly disrupted in the forwards also, with both experienced players and young exciting players absent for large periods of the season so far. Shane Grady, Aaron Brown, Levy Nzoungou and Tyler Dupree to name a few, are players we hoped would have provided a great blend of experience and enthusiasm needed to provide a platform for the rest of the side.
Disappointingly, we haven’t been able to select these players in combination at any stage of the season, all players who when fit would certainly be in strong contention for selection. These absences have placed a significant amount of pressure on less experienced members of the squad who have worked tirelessly but would no doubt benefit from having more experience to support them.
Jake Spedding, Ryan Ince, Adam Lawton, Joe Edge were all players also unavailable for the recent Featherstone game who would all be in contention to make the 17-man squad under normal circumstances.
We recognise that other clubs may be in a similar situation with regards to injuries and that we still need to maintain a much higher level of performance than we have done even with the current circumstances.
With a week off now until we face Whitehaven at home, we are anticipating to have all players back to fitness for the game apart from long-term absentees Shane Grady and Levy Nzoungou, as well as Jake Spedding and Jack Owens as the latter recovers from knee surgery.
We are confident the return of influential playmakers such as Danny Craven and Aaron Brown in addition to forwards Adam Lawton and Tyler Dupree will put the squad in a much stronger position going into the Whitehaven game and beyond.
We are continually working to identify and add players to the squad, which is not always easy given the demands placed on most squads. We recognise that the nature of the short-term loans and dual registration is not always ideal, however we will continue to assess the market and strengthen the squad when possible.
There is still a lot of work to do even with our full squad available, and we can assure our supporters that we will strive to get back to our best no matter what the circumstances.
We are currently in the process of recruiting a new head coach, and appreciate your patience as we speak to candidates in order to find the right man for the job to lead Widnes Vikings forward.
Our main goal for this league season remains the same, to finish the campaign in the play-off positions to put our club in the strongest position possible with regards to potential restructuring of the league system in the coming years.
We know that we need your backing to turn our form around and get back to the standard that we all know we can reach, so we would like to assure you that we are doing everything we can to return to that and ask that we stick together through this difficult period with better times to come this year.
Enough said i suppose. They recognise things are bad and are hoping to make it better lets hope other teams get as many injuries
Are the club taking the piss? In that case why get rid of the turnip.. absolutely ridiculous statement.
You can't ask for more than that to be honest. Rather them get the right coach even though Delta is available. 🥖🥖🥖👍 But he might complain about the board members unless they go Pascals Pinkies 😂
I'm not available now my french porn star.. wouldn't work for those comedy characters in charge of our club.
It’s a statement with excuses and no answers. It does not address the poor recruitment over the past few seasons and the contracts handed out to former academy player who should not be anywhere near championship rugby. The squad was threadbare at the start of the season at 26.
can I just ask what Finney does. As far a I am aware apart from being from Widnes and an academy manager, does that qualify you to be the CEO
It’s a statement with excuses and no answers. It does not address the poor recruitment over the past few seasons and the contracts handed out to former academy player who should not be anywhere near championship rugby. The squad was threadbare at the start of the season at 26.
can I just ask what Finney does. As far a I am aware apart from being from Widnes and an academy manager, does that qualify you to be the CEO
Well said stu 👍👍
Right you are
I will be at the next home game as usual
Cant wait
Lets get a decent crowd in
Decent crowd primrose you taking the piss 😂
Right you are
I will be at the next home game as usual
Cant wait
Lets get a decent crowd in
Decent crowd primrose you taking the piss 😂
Not at all
We have indeed had many players missing.
At the start of the season there was great optimism.
Ive seen far worse teams of course, so its important fans keep attending
Clubs had a shocker there.
There won’t be an appointment this season, I’ll tell you that now
Such a poor statement just telling us what we already know about injuries and using examples of how many appearances players have made and how it impacts the group which I find quite condescending and insulting fans intelligence , but yet nothing about the other major concerns of the club eg poor recruitment, dwindling attendances, the none existent match day experience, the amount of money fans are throwing down the drain year on year with no return infact no sign of stating they are aware of any of that or what they intend to do differently. And the most important part of the statement the head coach or should I say none head coach got the smallest paragraph out the lot!
to top it off the statement wasn’t even signed by anybody it really is amateur hour everywhere I feel sorry for the media guy the lad gets so much back lash off social media and the board/ceo are no where to be seen
i ain’t one for ripping in but that has really annoyed me tonight
Tell us something we don't know,
A waste of cut & paste time for the SM man
Paulie xx
Other than Craven and Owen, does anyone know our first team? Surely with a small squad of 26, you would expect all the players in the squad to be able to step into the first team.
The statement does seem to dwell on injuries, when probably the fact is that the squad is just not big enough, or good enough. Whether they are looking to bring in players to strengthen the squad, perhaps we should accept that at face value. They do say that they are speaking to candidates for the head coach position, so where does the suggestion that we won’t appoint anyone this season come from?
So the club are criticised for not making a statement and now criticised for making a statement. They just can’t win. The clue as to who issued the statement is in the words “club statement”. Why do people want separate statements from the CEO and everyone else. I would guess that the Statement was signed off by the Board and CEO, before it was issued.
Let’s hope that the next Club Statement is to announce the appointment of a new Head Coach in the next week, with some positive words from the newly appointed Coach prior to the Whitehaven game, to raise the spirits of fans who are as dispirited as the players at the moment!
I was disappointed with the loss to Barrow, but that had a lot to do with the official in charge. We were poor against York and even with the injuries we had, we should have beaten Newcastle, but the other 4 defeats, with the players we had available I expected. A couple of them we had only 17 fit players. And 3 of them, 2 against Leigh and Fev, we, like all the other teams in our division, would have lost, with a full team, and a good coach.I didn’t see many complaining when we won our first 4 games, apart from quite rightly saying we hadn’t got enough prop forwards, but now, quite a few are saying we’ve had a rubbish squad all season
With about 6 players back for the Whitehaven match, I will be very disappointed if we don’t win that one and hopefully with a good new coach in charge, we will get our confidence back and win at Sheffield, and go on and qualify for the playoffs.