Just under a 1000 were free tickets and the attendance was 5,071

according the the PA.I think one of those kids doing the scores in French were French so not sure whether Toulose had a say in that.

Scott Yates is from the Academy. Flynn is a St Helens lad, not sure if he was at Saints or signed from an amateur club.

To answer the earlier questions, the kids on the PA were from local schools and were announcing scorers and interchanges in something approximating to French.

Yes both Flynn and Yates are academy lads. As were Ostick, Simm and Grady tonight. both Flynn and Yates have been superb so far this season.

The kids voice after every try was 'supposed' to be in French, announcing every try/sub etc.

Toulouse are way off the pace at the moment, I hope tonight was an eye opener for them for the rest of the season to get up to speed, they'll get better.

As for us, that's an 88-0 and a 70-0, albeit against Saddleworth and Toulouse but you can only play whats infront of you. Pretty rare for a new coach to start a job after those scorelines!

Att: 5,071. Only a few school kids in the east stand, at a guess just over 4,000 paying Widnes speccies there tonight.

An academy, community and apprenticeship scheme which have been awarded World Class status, great young players who were starting to come through in the last 2 years... and the RFL made a point of stating our home grown contribution was not upto scratch in our SL application feedback.

Laughable. It really is.

Ostick and Flynn in particular have good futures ahead of them i suspect.

Wondered what the kids announcement thing was, though they'll do well to beat the Russian announcements we had when we first played Locomotiv in 2003

I was just about to post but somebody decided to lock it after a bit of thread drift

So here goes

Very dissapointing , the lads on TV tried thier best to make excuses but if that is how they [ Toulouse prepare for a season in this league then thier inclusion is/will be a big mistake

Without doubt they were not ready for a SL franchise , so well done the RFL on that decision

Looking forward to seeing a proper Championship match next week from the Shay

I've cleaned this thread.

Now, it's really, really simple: we are not going to have thread about a Widnes match turned into yet another boring slanging match or re-hashing of the franchise debate.

We'll discuss the match and the match alone.

And the same thing applies to any threads in coming weeks and months about Widnes games – and about games involving Celtic, for that matter.

Thanks for that assesment Wellsy..
5017 in the championship for a thursday night telly game without any away fans is pretty decent going.
I believe that if tonight had been a SL game with the lure that such a match has and if the away team had not been one of the usual suspects and brought a normal following we could have topped 9 maybe 10k tonight..
the club has made great strides in promoting the games and it was a pleasure that it all looked so good on the TV

Boooo!!
only joking

I'll say again, very well done tonight and you can only beat what is in front of you. You won and did that impressively enough taking most of the opportunities presented to you and created a lot through good play of your own.

It will be interesting to see how Widnes go next week against Fax as it will give a bit more of an idea of how they will get on the rest of this year. I know it is only one game but I think it will be more indicative of what test they will face week in week out. That tonight wasn't near to that.

Toulouse, I thought, were shocking. Somebody gave them credit in defense but I can't really give them too much myself. I was willing them to score near the end just to get them off the mark and up and running but it wasn't to be.

All in all good to see national league/championship back as I loved it when we used to feature on there and loved the places I visited in NL1 and NL2 and enjoyed myself so much I will definitely go back to a lot of the places as a neutral if possible.

I only asked a question

But fair enough

A crap side , a crap match , embarassing really

Paddy signed from Thatto Heath

Which 30 seconds of the game was that?

Without doubt , well done

A bad start but who'd have thought after the game at Leeds that Celtic would only lose 4-0 to Saints?

A learning experience, and something that will progress with time

Fucking hell.

Give that man a biscuit. I have not heard well drilled and impressive in the same breath as Widnes for ing donkeys years.

Stanny was the man officially in charge last night and has done really well. Still a nipper at 29 in the coaching role, granted we were beaten last week at Barrow but he's proved ruthless in that if your not playing well your out. I don't think we've had that either in years in a genuine squad competitiveness. That is the line drawn in the sand now and something for Paul Cullen to build on to and they were chatting a lot throughout the match last night too when I glanced behind me. Cullen was even clapping when we scored.



All in all a good night. The last time we nilled someone live on the telly I think was the Regal Trophy Final back in 1992 (Leeds 24-0).

Who is Stanny?

Stankevitch

So this is the club the expansionist loons wanted in SL.

I'd laugh but it's just so sad how clueless these people really are and how much damage their crackpot theories continue to ruin our great game.

Toulouse aren't ready for the Conference and France is barely capable of one Pro team let alone two and I see no reason why any British team should make way for them under any circumstances.

Toulouse need to prove their worth with actions not promises and bull. It's early days and it was a hard start but none the lass that was truly dreadful.
Maybe they will turn it around but it looks far worse than ever imagined.

Finally well done Widnes, proper team, proper club with proper potential.

Can not see why this match was the TV match complete joke know wonder Batley was moaning they are only on once.
I thought it was a chance to see how good rugby was in this league not what club you are come on Sky get it together.

Not sure why Batley are moaning - Widnes only have one home league game on, too?

It was the obvious game to show - Toulouse entering the league is the big story, plus the 2005 Challenge Cup rematch and the timing of the Cullen announcement helped add interest. Doubt there'll be a bigger crowd for a championship game this season until the play-offs, either.

Kindly check out the message at viewtopic.php? ... 7#13813587. Mintball

Kindly check out the message at viewtopic.php? ... 7#13813587. Mintball

I thought it was the natural choice for a televised game.. Toulouse going into this were an unknown quantity and have been included to create some razzmatazz..

Okay so they got dicked on last night but no-one couldn't have been sure that it wouldn't have been a close game.. Personally I thought it might have been alright to watch from the neutrals point of view despite it being a walkover and that seems to have been a bit supported on this thread.

Anyone know where I can find a report for this including cards and penalty counts