WIDNES hoped to follow the yellow brick road to safety on Sunday but without their Wizard from Oz hit a Salford City red brick wall instead.

After losing mercurial standoff Owen Craigie to mumps, a rudderless Vikings side slumped to their eighth defeat in ten to remain grounded in the relegation mire.

Speaking after his side's woeful 22-6 defeat, a dejected Frank Endcott was clearly far from his normal happy self.

"That was a dreadful performance," the Kiwi said. "Losing Owen Craigie at the last minute again didn't help but I'm not going to make excuses.

"I can't give an answer to explain it because I haven't got one. It was the most confident I have been all year for a victory so they are either great actors or I'm a poor judge.

"I'm really disappointed with some of the players out there and I'll be telling them that personally because to stay in touch we had to win."

On a day when, the opening 10 minutes aside, Widnes struggled to put one of the meanest defences in Super League under any real pressure, Craigie's sudden loss was a major blow, as was Terry O'Connor's sin-binning for appearing to squirt water at Salford's Kevin McGuinness following an altercation.

"You despair at that," Endacott said of the Widnes-born prop's behaviour. "It didn't give us the start we needed and it was costly to his team but it's not usually in his game either."

O'Connor's teammates will have to match his otherwise committed performance against Super League pacesetters Leeds on Saturday night if they are to have a chance of getting anything from the game.

"It doesn't get any easier but we've got to go out and have a crack against Leeds," Endacott said yesterday after a tough training session. "We got back to reality this morning and if we don't play with passion and do the little things right we'll get walloped.

"But relegation is not a word I use, it's too earlier to be talking about that. I'm just looking for a response."

l OWEN Craigie will not be ready for the Leeds clash this Saturday

l COACH Endacott has no fresh injury worries and centre Adam Hughes is likely to be fit to face his old club