Well surprised nobody has commented yet or are we all still a little frustrated?

First half an hour of the game was very good, players running great angles and some superb patterns of play controlled very well by our half backs. After the 30 minute point we seemed to go sleep apart from a burst midway through the second half which put the game to bed. We also seemed to lose the plot a little when Gannon and Ostick and Wildbore went from the pitch, Kavanagh again performed well but the jury is still out on Thompson. Lee Doran seems to have very little confidence at the moment and isnt running anywhere near his strength. Our defence seems to go awol when a team is camped on our line, why do we control the game fine in the midfield area only to crumble defending our red zone?

Ostick for MOM for me followed by Simm for his workrate.


A very slow improvement week by week at the minute.

You missed a classic tonight on Sky Sports. Bradford Bulls putting in a dire performance against Warrington. All that was missing was a huge tarpaulin over the stadium and you would have had a big top, complete with it's clowns.

Why the would any of us want to watch the W**e?

Sky plussed it and watched it when i got home from the match, wouldn't say classic, was more of a whitewash against a poor Bradford side

Widnes IMO were poor tonight, defence was awful. Very good game for Kav, I think Thompsons getting more confident with every game he plays. Simm looked very strong. Gaskell was making some good runs. Webster is still failing to impress me. If we hadn't been lacking basic defensive rugby skills we would have put in a great performance.

Don't think the ref had a great game, few mistakes, mainly the Grady "knock-on" that led to a Batley try. It was a great take by Grady. Batley were offside at most plays of the ball but the ref didn't seem to mind.

Also noticed that we tapped on a couple of penalties, why were we not kicking for position? maybe Cullen has clocked on that we can't score whilst on the opponents line and would rather us break from 20-30 metres.

Also thought Thackeray had a good game and is now coming into his own in the stand off role. Crouthers try was shocking and Mark Smith of all people appeared to be the main one at fault with that one. As i said our goal defence was awful and we allowed Batley some real cheap scores but you can tell Cullen has been working on the offence and the dummy runners. The only question i have AGAIN is why didnt we finish them off good and proper when we had the chance, Cullen's use of Subs has to be questioned a little IMO.

We are slowly getting there. We need to start finishing off our chances. Countless times we didnt take them tonight. Also Wildbore is a greedy get, never fails to keep the ball to himself when theres a chance for someone else to score.

1 Widnes 6 4 0 2 184 90 2 14
2 Barrow 5 4 0 1 139 82 1 13
3 Halifax 4 4 0 0 146 56 0 12
4 Whitehaven 5 3 0 2 162 112 2 11
5 Leigh 5 3 0 2 101 107 2 11
6 Featherstone 4 3 0 1 103 74 0 9
7 Sheffield 6 1 0 5 130 147 5 8
8 Doncaster 4 1 0 3 73 104 2 5
9 Gateshead 5 1 1 3 95 157 0 5
10 Batley 6 1 1 4 102 254 0 5
11 Toulouse 4 1 0 3 98 150 1 4

agree about the subs, i think cullens still experimenting. He seems to have got the attacking right, lets hope he works on our poor defence.

Dont bank on it..

Expect many a 42-30 or 32-36 reverse style scores. Cullen seems to be a believer of the "well we'll just score more than you" strategy. The defence is just an after thought. It was this blindness that ultimately cost him his job at Warrington.

You'll certainly see some good attacking rugby though.

You have agree that Mark Smith has been out of sorts for a few games in a row now. Not going to bag him or anything, but whether its an injury or tiredness or whatever - we're not really seeing a lot from him. Sheffield game he was class - 3 games in a row after that and we've not really seen him. IMO Smith's at his best when he's driving forward, I don't care if people would see it as selfish but if I was him, I'd be running from dummy half a lot more than he has been recently.

To an extent I think Cullen's hands are tied re subs. Wasn't sure why Wildbore went off but otherwise the number of players injured is getting worse.
I think we missed Duffy tonight who has been excellent and I hope he comes back fit and not carrying a knock. I think we need another option at hooker as Smithy has looked out of sorts. With Beswick gone the competition for his place has gone with it as we all know that is where he really wanted to play. I do hear Robinson is playing well in the reserves. Maybe Cull will look at him at some point?
Also heard in the club afterwards that they have been hammering defensive work in training all week! At the moment the technique is just awful with players just grabbing at shirts. We really need to put the shoulder in and bring them down fast but at least it's being worked on.

I am fairly positive after last night... again we had all the possession but we looked fairly good with the ball at times. A little more ingenuity and we will be fine. Some of the plays were class though.
With the raft of players that we have to come back in I think we will be a lot stronger in the weeks to come.

I agree 100% mate

don't count on it

Duffy is a great player even if he is a little overweight.

i agree think he was brilliant for us before he was moved into the forwards, infact i believe he should be starting at scrum half instead of webster. Anyway it will be interesting to see if he plays for widnes again this season in his desired position

I can't understand why people a bigging up Thompson and Kavanagh. When they had both replaced Ostick and Gannon we were f*****g poor. That's when Batley started to get on top and scored their trys. As soon as we had Ostick and Gannon back on we were immediately much better.

Kavanagh may be worth persevering with, but Thompson is useless imo.

I do think Thompson is getting better... from his early season performances he is quite lot better but I agree that we do suffer when we lose Gannon..

Maybe the trick is to start with Gannon and Thompson and then bring on Ostick (as an impact player) with Kavannagh. Not really sure what other options there are at the mo until Morrison is back? Doran?? Not sure!!

Dont agree about Simm looking very strong, especially in defence. Missed two tackles which led to Batley tries, Thompson missed the 1st tackle on the 1st try and then Simm missed the other. Gave away the penalty for their 3rd try which from the resulting set of six they scored off.

However he's still only a young lad and only started playing the game from the age of 15 so cant be critisised too much.

Simm is also doing 80 minutes week in week out, he has really impressed me this year and will only get better.

Aye really rate Josh Simm, looks to be a very commited and hardworking young lad/player.