REPORT: WIDNES VIKINGS 16-14 DONCASTER

The Vikings made it 6/7 to start the Championship season after a narrow 16-14 win over Doncaster at the DCBL Stadium this afternoon.

It was a scratchy performance from Allan Coleman’s side but tries from Butt, Gilmore and Wilde were enough to secure the all-important two points.

Doncaster took the lead after a series of offloads allowed them to score out wide through Sam Smeaton.

The visitors then extended their lead to eight through a Craig Hall penalty goal after Widnes were penalised for a dangerous tackle.

The Vikings grew into the game in the latter stages of the first half, eventually hitting back through Mike Butt as he crossed following a great offload from loanee Tom Nisbet.

Just moments later the Vikings took the lead as Joe Edge palmed a kick down to Tom Gilmore on the stroke of half-time.

The lead was extended to 16-8 early in the second half as Sam Wilde came crashing onto Matty Fozard’s short pass to score next to the posts.

A period of back and forth was then broken by the visitors with just over ten minutes to go to cut the deficit to two points.

Doncaster piled on the pressure late in the game but the Vikings held on to seal a vital 16-14 win.

We turn our attention to our home clash with Whitehaven in two weeks as we look to make it 7/8 to start the Championship season.

COACHES COMMENTS

Head Coach Allan Coleman said: “I’d been worried about this game all week, I’d been honest and said to player I felt quite nervous about this game.

“They’ve got some quality and they’re the biggest team in our competition without a shadow of a doubt, so I’m over the moon to get the win.

“Champion teams win ugly and I think we won that ugly today, I think we played exceptionally for 6 minutes before half time and 10 minutes in the second half and we’ve beaten a really good team.

“We can’t keep doing that though and we won’t, we will re-evaluate how we performed and then we’ll go from there.”