Gave us a scare that first half.
Good luck in your remaining fixtures, would rather have Bradford in SL who bring a great following to Widnes than Salford who are only 30min up the road and only bring a taxi full.

Joe Cobb is a poor ref, yes. But he's not the one missing tackles or playing the ball slowly or basically being lackadaisical in defence and unsure and uncommitted in attack.

That 2nd half was probably the worst half we've played all season. We're just not up to SL standard and if we make the £1 Million Game then I think we're going to come away from it disappointed

We were appalling in the second half. Can't remember us having a single PTB in their half the entire 40 minutes.

Went to see a game, instead had the misfortune to have to watch the incompetent buffoon that is Cobb. I've had a bellyful of that useless towat this season and the first half he served up his usual mystifying inconsistent slop, infuriating the fans, and totally, completely, ruining the game. Everyone had come to watch Bulls v Widnes. Yet by half time, the whole stadium was just roaring at the referee. He should watch the video of that first half and realise that a referee has the power to make a RL game watchable, and stay in the background, or to entirely ruin it, which he did.

I said before the game that to beat a SL club with no halfbacks was practically impossible and so it proved. On the day, given Widnes' total domination in the second half, maybe they would have been comfortable winners whatever, but sadly we didn't have any halfbacks, we didn't have our main man Gaskell when we needed him, and that's just how it goes.

We came out all right, if not quite at Salford game elevels, but didn't make the best of our initial stretches of possession. Sadly, our positional kicking was way off today. We hardly ever put in a decent kick, of any sort. And even managed to kick one out on the full. No excuse, but if your personnel don't have the ability to kick well, there you go.

But what did make a significant difference was the calling of key marginal forward passes against the Bulls, when every marginal forward pass of Widnes (and a few huge forward passes) were let go. Then there was the sheer weight of penalties, several of them dubious, but penalties were a one way street today. There was almost nothing Widnes could do, whether offside, laying on, obstruction, not making any attempt to PTB, everything was just waved through by the ludicrously incompetent Mr Cobb.

Cobb aside, the main difference in the two teams was that when either team was going forward (and in the first half, we won plenty of collisions and made plenty of ground) Widnes had the halfbacks to plague and torment the defense, keep us guessing, do darting runs or spin the ball out and looked very dangerous and sharp all afternoon. WHilst we were not too tired, we coped with it quite well, but in contrast, when we had possession, there was nothing much from halfback at all. No threat, no danger, no direction.

As the second hald degenerated we were done, though. I was very disappointed in just how badly we defended, and how tired we looked. As points difference may yet be important, we had plenty to play for, but some of the defence in the last 25 mins was really, really poor. It looked like a team that was ready to lean over an pull its pants down for the opposition. It was hard to watch. Yes, we were being totally outclassed, but that was largely because we had given up any attempt to shuttle back in a line and turn and get in Widens faces, and we ignored their creative players, letting them run around unhindered until they selected the next move.

The lesson for me is that despite thrashing Salford, we can't really expect to compete with the SL sides in these playoffs without halfbacks, as we can't pull performances like that out of a hat every week. Despite teh scoreline, I won';t say we couldn't have won today with Gaskell, although the energy Cobb took out of us in the first half is hard to counter, but with Gaskell, I expect we would have had a lot more filed position, a significant amount more possessio, and more attacking threat. Had we gone in at half time fairly level on energy as well as points, with a Gaskell, then the second half might have been more of a game. But if we wanted to make ourselves look inferior to the lower SL clubs, then in the second half we achieved that pretty well. Completely disorganised and amateurish.

2nd half was bad.

Just so much defending. Can't remember a penalty awarded to us or a single ptb the ball in their 40.

Widnes had good line speed. Addy didn't look like a half back at all today. Widnes rushed him and he struggled.

Widnes deserved the win and to win well. Solid side.

If you believe that any championship side will make it to SL with this ill conceived format you are deluded, anyway good luck with your next games.

Granted we were poor in the 2nd half, however, if the ref had applied the same kind of penalty calls for both sides then we would not have lost faith the let the game go.

They did indeed.

But addy isn't a halfback, never was, never will be. To his eternal credit he puts his hand up to play there and generally makes a decent fist of it but like you say, a SL team found him out, they had the brains and the speed to completely nullify him and that's the point, as the game wore on their halfbacks totally ran the show and embarrassed us, but we didn't have any halfbacks.

I also agree with roofaldo, tthe ref had alreqady ruiend the game and what would have been in the second half if Cobb hadn't made it irrelevant, we will never know. BUT with no halfbacks, on the day, I personally am sure we had no chance asit turned out. Too good for us. With Gaskell - maybe , would have made a big difference to have some threat when we had the ball.

I don't think Widnes were reliant on Cobb but he certainly helped them. The major discussion around me was whether he had "an agenda" and it certainly appeared so. It wasn't just incompetence and I don't think he is a Widnes fan. Yet again he appeared to steer a game involving the Bulls.
Saying all that we got what we deserved which makes it all the harder to fathom what happened 2 weeks ago. We weren't even valiant losers today. I presume todays Widnes are a better example of Super League than Salford were and we are miles away.

I probably should have added that whilst Addy is a very good player, he is not a half and is clearly trying his best. If Gaskell is back next week i'd move addy to 13.

I still felt we had a chance today, as much as i did against Salford. The announcement of Cobb yesterday did dent my confidence about how good our chance was today.

I don't think thats fair. When things continued to go against us in the second half, we did eventually colapse into pieces, true, but you have to take into account what happened in the first half, and you have to also understand that despite Salford it is folly to play a SL club without halfbacks. It just is. Mad.

Agree 8ull5hitt, I'm fed up of Cobb appearingto "steer" and manufacture games away from us. First set of the second half, Cobb gives one of them "hands in the ruck penalty" straight away taking Widnes up field. Then when ever he had the opportunity, he gave a forward pass against us. But he never blew up for a Widnes forward pass all game!!

The quicktap scenario summed it up for me. Clare took a quick tap and looked like he could go through a gap yet got brought back. Yet twice Cobb allowed Widnes to take a quick tap even on one occasion where Purtell was getting back in the defensive line after talking to the referee. It's not consistency it's fairness and I've seen enough of Cobb this year to suggest I do not think he is a fair referee.

Widnes were a class above and I still think they would have comfortably beat us. Their half backs killed us and had excellent line speed. But it just leaves a sour taste in the mouth the way those opening 15 mins of the second half were refereed. We fell off tackles towards the end as we simply didn't touch the ball the second half and were on our feet!

Oh and I hope the Addy at HB is now put to bed once and for all.

Very disappointing and easy to moan but I will hold back.
It was a case of a decent SL team being far too good in all areas over a good championship team. The difference was very clear.
We will probably still get into the £1m game so we are now playing for home advantage in that game - it's as simple as that as Stevo would say.
Ferres nearly got his 7k crowd but how many of those waverers will come back against Fax. Hopefully he can give us two quality halves with a decent cover player next year. We have played all year without two halves and will probably pay for it. No more championship quality players please. Release a handful of what we have and bring in two nasty forwards and one good SH and I will be much happier. We have a very good championship team but Widnes showed us how good a mid table SL club can be and what the gap is.

Oh well, another one of Jimmy's bad days in the office and I don't expect much next week but beat Leigh and fax well for points difference and we have 8 points. Could we scrape 4th.

Nowhere near the required standard today unfortunately. Simply can't hand over possession so cheaply in our own half to a SL side. The forward passes from dummy half were just lazy and sloppy play. Our kicking game was absolutely woeful, we badly need Gaskell back for some consistency in this area. With the amount of offloads we allowed in that 2nd half it is no wonder that Widnes put a score on us.

I'm not a big believer in referee conspiracies or bias but it's perhaps fair to say that we appear to struggle to get any 50/50 calls from Cobb. I can only hope we've seen the last of him for 2015. His calls certainly didn't take the game away from us, but his inconsistency is infuriating to watch.

I'm already having panic attacks at the thought he will be appointed for the Leigh game.

Not deluded at all, I know how hard it will be for the likes of yourselves or the other 3 championship sides to gain promotion. Doesnt mean i cant hope that you could hopefully pull off an upset and replace a side that doesnt deserve to be in the top flight.

Well, that didn't work out so well, did it?

Some really, really poor refereeing, but I'm going t put that to one side - because the referee doesn't miss tackles, allow offloads or drop the ball. And whilst we clearly allowed the raft of dodgy calls to 'get to us', the reality is that we were never really going to win this one today.

Right from the first minute we struggled to dominate in the forwards and had very little at halfback (either Mullaney wasn't fit or just had a very quiet game). Even at 14-12 at half time we were clinging on a bit, and it was only the breakaway try on the hooter that made it so close.

Very disappointed to concede 30 points in the last quarter - thats just not acceptable no matter how tired we were or how aggrieved we felt about not getting the runoff the green. We are a full time pro outfit and simply shouldn't capitulate like that! Halifax didn't just cave in like that against Salford yesterday even when the game had gone.

We obviously caught Salford with their socks down, but we look a long, long way from SL class on todays showing

About 800K off I'd say. Realistically we have to be the best Championship club to have a crack at promotion. The Salford result just gave us a chance of a home tie. I think we now know it will almost certainly come down to the million pound game for any side seeking promotion.

The reality very probably was that we were never going to win today, with no halves, but my complaint is that we as speccies simply never got the game we were entitled to watch, and had paid to watch, as it was completely ruined in the first half by the antics of that muppet Cobb. The goings-on in the first half had a serious impact on us and terrible as we were in the second, for me the match was already spoiled.

The £1m game is now the target. We must beat Leigh and Fax.
Does that mean we rest some players next week as we realistically have little chance at KR even if they are without their main halves.
I would put Gaskell on the bench to stretch his legs for a couple of stints.
Should we tell Seijka to play and show us what he can do along with another player at stand off.
We could rest AOB, Mullaney, Addey, Fergusson and one or two other forwards - although they have all just had two weeks off!
Two from three wins will do us right now but putting out a weakened team next week is hard to decide upon as the right thing to do. Play a full team and get some injuries and this forum will be screaming at Lowes. Tough decision for him.

In a seven game league it seems daft to even contemplate putting in the reserves for one of them but we do need a full team out for Leigh, Fax and the play-off game.

Except that KR are completely safe now and so won't be that bothered. We may catch them in complacent mood if we are very, very lucky. I would say though if Gaskell is not fit then play the reserves. The first team lies down and takes 50 when things go against us, and the reserves couldn't do worse. That was the disappointment - the second half capitulation.

Why to 13 Pitts is twice the player Addy is at 13. If Gaskell is fit then I have no spot in the 17 for Addy.

Both decent players at 13. Bit too far to say one of them is twice the player of the other at 13. I'd have Pitts in 2nd row with Addy at 13.

I dont think its an option to put out the reserves when this could all come down to points difference.

And no matter how unlikely, there's still the possibiity of a shock win.

Apart from which, I reckon we need more practice playing at this level of intensity, not a rest.

There's just no reason or evidence from this season to think that Lowes believes in 'resting players'. In fact he's said more than once that he doesn't agree with it.

I expect the best available team. He played the full team against Doncaster and Workington, he's not going to rest players against Hull KR!