Warrington Schools U13's 12pts v Widnes Schools U13's 20pts.

WIDNES travelled to Warrington in confident mood, having already completed a pre-season victory at Victoria Park. However, Warrington were not prepared to let that worry them and began the match in robust fashion, determind to knock Widnes off their game.

All credit to the Widnes boys who took all this in their stride and kept their composure to such and extent that after ten minutes, Christopher Barr sneaked over from acting half back for the opening score.

David Noone converted this try and Widnes settled into the game.

There now followed a torrid time for Widnes as they were faced with some big hits from the home side, and they had to soak up a lot of pressure.

The Widnes discipline was recovered when Martin Hill crossed for a good try which was converted by David Noone.

As half time approached, it was felt that although Widnes were in the lead, the match could swing either way, with Warrington much more of a threatening force than they were in the pre season friendly.

It was with some relief then that the travelling spectators saw Widnes awarded a penalty to give them a little breathing space as David Noone kicked the goal to give a half time score of 0pts - 14pts.

Perhaps discipline was the key to the second half, as Warrington gave away too many penalties to waste some good approach work. But credit must also go to some strong defence by David Esposito, Andrew Ratcliffe, Adam Gill and Ryan Millington which also kept the home side at bay.

Another feature of the second half was the number of injuries that Widnes suffered, causing quite a number of extra substitutions to be used to give all squad members league experience.

This resulted in a fair degree of disruption, but Widnes still retained their pattern of play and some clever work from Scott Myler and Adam Gill saw Ryan Millington cross under the posts for a fine try which Shaun McWhirter converted.

By this time, Widnes were well in control and it was only in the final minutes when Widnes substituted even more players, that Warrington was able to make the scores more respectable with two converted tries.

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