Widnes Vikings 6

Keighley Cougars 30

IT was a case of Hunslet revisited for the Vikings as a determined first-half performance crumbled into a disastrous second-half.

Widnes dominated for long spells in the first period and to go in at half-time trailing 2-8 was less than they deserved.

On several occasions, the Vikings carved open the Cougars' defence only to see the final pass go astray.

Stand-off, Shane Wilson, was the architect behind most of Widnes' best moves, combining particularly well with full-back, Jim Salisbury, and his replacement Dean Cross.

Territorially dominant, the Vikings forced a series of goal-line drop-outs but the visitors managed to keep their try line intact through a mixture of desperate last-ditch tackling and poor finishing from Widnes.

Against the run of play, the Cougars took the lead in the 10th minute.

A set move saw scrum-half, Chris Robinson, combine with hard-running, loose-forward, Mark Campbell, to send hooker, Jason Ramshaw, stumbling through Salisbury's tackle to score.

Salisbury was injured in the collision and replaced by Cross, who made an immediate impression with a couple of fine surges through the visitor's defence which sadly failed to realise points.

Widnes finally gained some reward for their efforts when Ramshaw was penalised for holding down, giving Hewitt an easy penalty goal to make it 2-6 on 21 minutes.

Widnes continued to have the better of things but failed to capitalise on breaks by Moore and Percival.

On the stroke of half-time, a Craig Makin high tackle allowed Keighley winger, Jamie Benn, to extend the lead to 2-8.

Sadly, for the second week running, Widnes fell away badly in the second-half.

A catalogue of handling errors allowed the Cougars to maintain good field position and they capitalised in fine style.

Widnes old boy, Christian Tyrer, on as a substitute, was behind much of the visitors attacking play.

It was his fine break that allowed centre, Jason Laurence to cross to start the second-half spree on 44 minutes.

The remainder of the half was a personal triumph for Cougars left-wing, Jason Lee, who took advantage of the Vikings flagging defence to register a hat-trick of tries.

Benn added three second-half conversions enabling the visitors to rack up a 2-30 lead by the 72nd minute.

Nothing much had gone right for Widnes since the interval but they finally managed to cross the whitewash with four minutes to go as Salisbury, O'Loughlin and Wilson combined to send Marty Moore in for a consolation try.

The final score of 6-30 flattered the Cougars but Widnes need to find a way of sustaining their efforts for a full 80 minutes.

Widnes; Salisbury, Munro, Percival, Moore (1t), Smith, Wilson, Hewitt (1g), Makin, Cassidy, White, Gildart, O'Neill, O'Loughlin, Subs: Birdseye, Measures, Cross, Richardson.

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