First match won, which could have been a tricky one, a few things to improve upon, despite losing a key player. Nobody seemingly letting the side down. Walker defied his critics, Gilmore did what we hoped he would do, a nice bit of game management at the end, which was never our strong suit. Bodes well for our first home game. lets hope we can make it 2 out of 2
We only made three errors in the first half - a knock on from AHB (Miller), a 1st pass knock on from the scrum on their 20 by FLEMING (who had a superb game, by the way, especially with some crucial one-on-one tackles in defence), and one another knock on when in attack. The first knock on by MILLER was followed by a penalty being conceded, and then they score on the next set to make it 4-6. This was where we conceded the dominant territory, and we did not get it back until after HT.
Second half was the same story, only they were making the errors and they handed us field territory back and we were able to virtually remain error free in the second stanza with a couple of good tries and of course the drop at the end..........best ball control I think I have seen from a Widnes side for 2 seasons!
I see Keighley lost 50 - 0 to Featherstone. Welcome to the Championship, Featherstone are good but they aren't 50 to nil good. People tipping Keighley to finish above us, let's see how we do on Sunday.
What a weekend I am recovering slowly. Hoping for a good following on Sunday and confident of a top 4 🥖🥖🥖 The tank Ram Roller did okay.
I watched the Keighley/Fev game last night and neither stoked my boiler, either as a bottom side or a top side. Keighley were poor and only in the last quarter showed anything like an attacking side and Fev just barged over the line on numerous occasions with little flair from what is expected from them, a better side will hold them more. Gale was very poor and showed nothing like his SL form need to just pin him down and spot him, that's all Fev did.
I watched the Keighley/Fev game last night and neither stoked my boiler, either as a bottom side or a top side. Keighley were poor and only in the last quarter showed anything like an attacking side and Fev just barged over the line on numerous occasions with little flair from what is expected from them, a better side will hold them more. Gale was very poor and showed nothing like his SL form need to just pin him down and spot him, that's all Fev did.
I'd argue Gale did show his SL form. He's been poor for 5 years now.
Widnes have often been a soft touch for veteran halves well past their best. Finn and Sammut for example.Let's hope this team don't allow any such nonsense.And let's hope for a decent gate of 3500 plus.
@sinbad Lets face it we've been a soft touch for any halfback who can control a game, we rarely seem to get near them and that includes Tom Gilmore when at Batley, Sammut always did more or less what he liked. Let's hope Mr Kear as got us drilled enough to nullify, whatever Gale is still capable of.
I suspect more will depend on how we play than Keighley! So now we've shaken the rust off, we can hopefully drive home more of our attacks. Lets hope we get a few extra along, on Sunday, after a decent start to the campaign!
I am looking forward to seeing the old Vikings Academy lads tearing it up!!! My dad was from the McCue era and he reckoned that McCue, Shannon and Millington had played together from being schoolboys and that if McCue f**ted the others knew the move!!!
Our game management sounded better and that will tell over the season.
JK mentioned that they 'overplayed' a couple of moves, but that's a good start to the season imo.
Thought Fev looked extremely strong last night and we have a gap to bridge to get near their level. Quality throughout the side.
Reality check for Keighley, am sure they will prove better than they looked last night once they have more experience in this league but we really should be beating them on Sunday. Some of their goal line defence left a lot to be desired.