In this N F P match played on 25 Jun 2000 at Auto Quest Stadium , the referee was Nick Oddy (Halifax), and 3455 people watched. In warm and dry weather, the half time score was 4- 16, and Widnes received 6 penalties to Hull's 7.		GAMESTAR Tommy Hodgkinson
Widnes Vikings	14
Hull KR	16

HEWITT RETURNS TO HAUNT WIDNES

The obvious politics behind the scenes managed to wreck Widnes' chance of winning this game. The key factors in this game were

Hewitt's perfect kicking

Our lack of a talented goalkicker

The lack of creative play from our halfbacks

Basic defensive lapses Now there's nothing we could have done about Hewitt's kicking, except not to give away penalties. The lack of a talented goalkicker could have been solved by the inclusion of on-form star Simon Verbickas. This guy was a star last season. He suffered a loss of form this year, but paid the penalty by being demoted to the U-21 side. He has held his head high, played with commitment, and seen his goalkicking improve to the point that it is criminal to see him performing a lap of honour with the second string instead of taking part in the main event.
The lack of creative play was horrendous. If the Birdseye, Jones and Fitzpatrick had been told not to pass the ball around, then the coaching staff are at fault. If they hadn't been told that, and a distributive game was required, then why was Mansson left out? Mansson has returned to this country ready to play for his team, but he was omitted from the squad. This man is a game-breaker of epic proportions. He can turn around a game at the click of a finger, so to leave him out is another terrible waste of resources.
The defensive lapses were unfortunate, but can be expected to a certain extent with such a young squad.

The fact is that here were two poor sides struggling to make any sort of impact on a mediocre game. Both sides were guilty of one-man rugby, Widnes perhaps more so than Rovers.
The first try came from a scrum near the Hull line. A criss-cross move involving Kilgannon and Percival failed to materialise, so Percival ran back into the line. He took the ball at first receiver and powered through the defence to touch down. Why is a player like Percival not given more of the ball? He has to come searching for it, and that is never going to do us any good.
Whetu Taewa scored the next try, racing half the length of the field to expose some sloppy Widnes tackling, resulting from a non-existent defensive pattern. Leatham, on 39 minutes, was the last man in a move that saw Widnes unable to close the attackers down.
The second half tries for Widnes were good enough, when they came. Phil Cantillon took the ball from the play-the-ball and accelerated through the gap to sprint all the way to the corner. The kick was missed, but it meant Widnes were back in the game.
The Munro try was straight from the scrum. Birdseye fed him and the fullback showed form of old to race through the line and score under the posts. That, along with the conversion, brought Widnes to within 2 points of the opposition, but that was as far as they got.
All too often Tommy Hodgkinson ran well and looked ready to offload, but there was no support.
If Widnes are going to make a good account of themselves in the playoffs, and I for one don't think they will actually win them, Hulme needs to pick players on their merits, and let them show the Widnes faithful what can be done with commitment, courage, and invention.

WIDNES

1. James Briers
2. Afi Leuila
3. Chris Percival
4. Eddie Kilgannon
5. Karl Long
6. Liam Jones
7. Lee Birdseye
8. Simon Knox
9. Phil Cantillon
10. Steve Argent
11. Steve Gee
12. Chris Murphy
13. Tommy Hodgkinson
14. Damian Munro
15. Mick Hill
16. Karl Fitzpatrick
17. Lee Hansen