DAYLIGHT ROBBERY

If ever Widnes had cause to complain against the referee, this was it.
Take a look at this catalogue of errors from Nicholson:

Incident	Ref's decision
Damien Munro (allegedly) in an offside position when ball hadn't been played	Munro sent to sinbin
Steve Argent grounds the ball on the try line	Tackle was good, play the ball
Deliberate Featherstone offside on the Featherstone Try line	Penalty, but no sinbin
Featherstone kick ball down the field while ref talks in deliberate waste of time(at least 3 occasions)	No action taken
Cantillon rolls over the tackler and grounds the ball for a try	Player on his back
Birdseye commits same offence as that for which Murphy was sinbinned	Birdseye sent off
Mansson caught off the ball and a skirmish takes place	Captains warned; Featherstone player reprimanded; Featherstone get penalty
Karl Long blatantly caught in eye	No action taken

I'm absolutely gutted that a game Widnes could have won was taken from our grasp by Steve Nicholson from Whitehaven. Of course, disciplinary errors by Widnes didn't help the cause, but there were quite obviously dual standards on display here.
Greg McCallum has promised to review the game and present his findings in Total Rugby League on Friday, so that will be worth reading. But it won't change the result, and that is a crying shame.

In the first half, Featherstone made good use of the slope and supporting wind by Scoring 2 tries, but they were never able to assert any real supremacy. The young Widnes side, with U21 stars deputising during a tragic injury crisis, kept Featherstone mainly at bay. Andy Cheetham made an 80 yard break after intercepting the ball deep in the Widnes half, but he didn't have the uphill pace to beat the Featherstone followers.
Steve Argent, Mick Hill and Simon Knox ran at the defence well, making good yards. Steve Gee played well, especially when he chased Jamie Stokes down the touchline and hauled him back by the collar. He also did some wonderful surgery on Andy Heptinstall's arm that needed some recuperation on the bench.
Paul Mansson played a blinder in defence, popping up in all positions across the park. He takes some stick from fans, but he always puts in the graft and then conjurs up a bit of magic. The magic came on the stroke of halftime when he put Damian Munro through the gap. The defenders got to him, and how they didn't tackle the fullback is a mystery, but the try was there and it set Widnes up for a second half comeback down the hill.
Unfortunately, the only thing that went downhill after the break was Munro's concentration. He allowed the ball to bounce from the kickoff, and the hard ground gave a lucky bounce to Chapman who ran in under the posts.
"But," as Ray French would say, "all credit to Widnes". They clawed their way back into the game when Munro fed the ball on the blind side to Peter Smith to score wide out. Liam Jones scored a wonderful touchline conversion, and then we were treated the the try of the match. Phil Cantillon's individuality capped another fine performance when he ran 60 yards, bamboozling the home defence to score by the posts. Jones added the extras, and Widnes were back to within four points, with their momentum increasing all the time.
Then came the breaking point. Lee Birdseye made a needlessly late tackle on Rooney as he kicked upfield. The ball was taken cleanly by Munro, but Birdseye was sent from the field. It took Featherstone a quarter of an hour to use the extra man, but they did with five minutes to go, using the full width of the field to expose the gap. Rooney got the the goal, and Widnes had to score twice.
They did score another, when Munro used Liam Jones as a decoy before darting through, but there was no time left for another to tie the scores.
4-4 in tries, with the difference made up of three Jamie Rooney penalty goals. Two disallowed tries, and even if you say one of them was minutes before we scored anyway, you have to say that the Argent one might have made the difference.