Widnes Vikings 42 Workington Town 16

FANTASTIC Phil Cantillon produced another try-scoring super show as the Vikings outclassed Workington at the Auto Quest.

Cantillon's hat-trick took his tally for this campaign to 27 tries surpassing the tries-in-a-season by a forward previously held by Hunslet's Richard Pachniuk.

The writing was on the wall for the visitors as early as the second minute when Cantillon found Afi Leuila in acres of space to score in the right corner.

On 10 minutes Steve Gee hit the ball at pace to coast in from 35 metres to extend the lead and nine minutes later, stand-off for the day Liam Jones, put Chris Percival under the posts with a well disguised inside ball.

Cantillon got in on the act as he fed off a Gee break and on the stroke of half time Steve Argent barged his way over and Town were dead and buried at 26-0.

Widnes made a listless start to the second period and Workington managed to get on the scoreboard when burly scrum-half Michael Dempsey scrambled over to make it 26-4.

Normal service was resumed on 47 minutes when Cantillon went in for his second try and within minutes he's notched his hat-trick and broken the record when he backed up a Tommy Hodgkinson break.

The remainder of the match was a somewhat torpid affair with Workington unable to mount a Simon Knox try which was just reward for another afternoon of non-stop endeavour from the Vikings prop.

If Widnes hope to secure a home draw ion the first round of the play-offs this weekend's encounter with Oldham is a must-win game.

The Roughyeds are one of the form teams in the Northern Ford Premiership and although their normal home venue of Boundary park will not be available to them, wherever they play it still looks like a stiff task for the Vikings.

Widnes: Briers, Leuila (1t), Percival (1t), Kilgannon, Long, Jones (4g), Birdseye (1g), Knox (1t), Cantillon (3t), Argent (1t), Gee (1t), Hill,Hodgkinson. Subs: Fitzpatrick, Murphy, George, Hansen

Attendance: 3,162

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.