Head coach John Kear admits he was pleased with what he saw as Widnes Vikings kicked off pre-season with a comfortable 46-6 victory over Rochdale Hornets.
The Vikings ran in a total of nine tries at the DCBL Stadium, and the fixture gave an opportunity for several new faces to enjoy their first minutes in Vikings colours, with Will Evans and Kyle Amor handed full debuts.
Speaking post-match, Kear said: “Before the game, one of my messages to the players was to enjoy it because it’s been a long pre-season.
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“To me, we’ve got three Christmas Eve’s, three trial games, before Christmas Day on February 5, so it’s been a good Christmas Eve!
“It’s a 7.5/10 for what we wanted to achieve. There are things that we can tidy up and improve upon, but there are certainly things that we did very well.
“There are some individuals who put their hand up, and today you saw the benefit of having competition for places.
“There really has been a sense of desire to put their best foot forward and claim a starting shirt for York, but what you’ve seen today is the depth of the squad.
“Even when we rotated players, you didn’t sense that the quality dropped off. It’s made me very happy and confident going forward.”
Kear also praised the individual display of Joe Edge, who scored a hat-trick and added five goals to amass a personal 22-point haul.
“I was really pleased for Joe, and he’s probably the only one who has played 80 minutes,” he added.
“He’s been practising his goalkicking, let me tell you! When there’s competition, you’ve got to have an edge in order to put your nose in front of the others.
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“We could see the rewards of that practice. I think Joe can sleep well tonight, and he hasn’t done his chances any harm.”
Kear provided an update on the players who didn’t feature against Rochdale.
Danny Craven was suffering with a hamstring strain and Josh Johnson had a sore knee, and both were left out as a precautionary measure.
The Vikings are back in action away at Oldham on Sunday 22 January (3pm kick-off). Tickets can be bought here.
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Featured photo credit: RLPIX
