Widnes Vikings 14 Featherstone Rovers 20

THE VIKINGS met their Waterloo against a Featherstone side that clearly came to the Auto Quest stadium with a purpose and a plan that they carried out to perfection.

Seven wins on the bounce for Widnes didn't seem to phase the visitors at all as they looked in control of the match from the outset.

One of the major differences between the sides was the quality of their kicking game.

The Vikings' kicking game has looked poor all season though recent results have tended to disguise the fact.

This was the day when it was cruelly exposed.

A fourth minute try to Simon Verbickas looked to have set the Vikings on their way but in a first-half dominated territorially by the visitors, it proved to be a minor blip.

On 17 minutes, a simple try by stand-off Paddy Handley converted by Jamie Rooney saw Featherstone take the lead and to be honest it came as little surprise.

A Rooney drop-goal increased the lead before Mark Hewitt's 40 metre penalty brought the Vikings back to 6-7 with eight minutes of the half to play.

On the stroke of half-time, a perfectly worked move from a scrum saw Paul Mansson send Jamie Briers waltzing under the posts for a score converted by Hewitt to make it 12-7.

A Hewitt penalty in the first minute of the second-half saw the Vikings move into a 14-7 lead but one always had the impression it was going to be difficult to maintain the lead, such was the purpose shown by Rovers.

On 62 minutes, one of many poor kicks by the Vikings gifted Rovers good field position and they swiftly took advantage as right-winger Jamie Stokes joined the line in centre-field and stormed 40 metres to the line.

Rooney's conversion made it 14-13.

A Rooney drop-goal 10 minutes from the end drew the scores level but Rovers' dominance was such that there only ever looked like one winner.

And so it proved - with four minutes left on the clock, a kick through broke luckily for wingman Matt Bramald to touch down with Rooney converting.

The majority of the near 4,000 crowd went home disappointed but this defeat may serve as a welcome wake-up call to the Vikings who have clearly got a number of areas to work on before they can consider themselves as nailed-on championship contenders.

Widnes: Munro, Smith, Percival, Briers (1t), Verbickas (1t), Mansson, Hewitt (3g), Hansen, Cantillon, Hill, Mann, Adams, Hulme. Subs: Myler, Cassidy, Doherty, Savelio.

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