St Helens 26-10 Widnes: Saints get revenge on Vikings

Match stats: St Helens 26-10 Widnes

St Helens tries: Percival (21), Grace (25), Walmsley (56), Morgan (61), Fages (75)
Goals: Percival (21,56,75) 

Widnes tries: Ince (49), Craven (70)
Goals: Craven (70) 

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Match report

St Helens gained revenge over Widnes with a 26-10 Betfred Super League victory that leaves the Vikings rooted to the bottom of the table.

The Vikings picked up only their second win of the season the last time the two sides met in April but Saints were in no mood to slip up again and ran in five tries to run out easy winners.

The victory saw Justin Holbrook's side leapfrog rivals Wigan in the table and remain in the hunt for a top-four place.

Mark Percival, who bagged his 500th point for the club, got the Saints rolling as he crossed after 22 minutes as Regan Grace sprinted through a gap and sent the ball inside to Percival to power over.

The Grace-Percival combination linked up again five minutes later as a cut-out pass reached the electric winger Grace, who plunged over the whitewash.

One conversion from Percival gave the home team a 10-0 half time lead but Widnes will have been kicking themselves after they squandered at least three golden opportunities to score.

The best of them came after two minutes when impressive scrum-half Rangi Chase passed to Charly Runciman but the Aussie fumbled over the line.

Widnes started the second half brightly and Matty Whitley should have scored after the Vikings cut through but Saints half-back Theo Fages pulled off a brilliant ball-and-all tackle to stop the black and whites from making the breakthrough.

Ryan Ince finally got the try Widnes were searching for on 50 minutes as Whitley delivered a neat pass which the rookie winger finished off well.

Danny Craven hooked the conversion wide but the Vikings were back in it.

But it did not take long for order to be restored and instead of Saints dragging themselves back into it, the Vikings let them off the hook as big Alex Walmsley flopped over the line from dummy-half.

Percival converted to put them two scores ahead and they were gifted a penalty from the restart as Craven booted out on the full and were back hammering the Vikings line again.

The output was Jonny Lomax causing havoc and putting Aussie centre Ryan Morgan over for a brilliant score.

Craven hit back for Widnes with a solo effort as he scooted through the heart of the Saints defence to plunder a converted try that gave Widnes a lifeline with nine minutes remaining.

However, any flicker of hope was extinguished as Fages raced in after he charged a Vikings' clearance down.

Match reaction

Widnes boss Denis Betts offered no excuses, saying: "We got beaten by a better side and sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say that. We just didn't have enough to get over the line.

"We should have got off to a scoring start as Charly Runciman goes over and he should score. We had a chance and they took their opportunities we didn't take ours.

"In the second half we didn't have any ball and did an awful lot of defending. It was one of those times where they built pressure and got the job done. They fell over the line with (Alex) Walmsley and that was a soft try to concede. They scored again in the corner and that was it.

"It's disappointing as we had turned a corner in the last month or so. We have started getting bodies back but today I hold my hands up and say they played better than us. I don't want to make excuses. We just got beaten by a side who played particularly well today. They manufactured two quality tries in the second half."

Saints head coach Justin Holbrook was delighted his side hit back after a narrow loss to Castleford last week: "I was really happy with that performance. I thought the majority of it was very good. The first 25 minutes tested us. We were playing a dangerous side in Widnes and we put ourselves under pressure but we turned them away.

"We did well not be down by a fair bit in the first half though.

"I was really disappointed last week in what we didn't do against Castleford and this week we really improved and that's what really pleases me as a coach as we've worked on a few things this past week. We have a good squad here and everyone needs to know they need to play well to keep the jersey.

"I was really happy with our attack. We executed really well. A lot of that was Jonny Lomax coming into it but our middle was excellent. Matty Smith organised the team very well. It was a real combination of everyone coming together.

"Regan (Grace) and Percy (Mark Percival) are putting a real combination together and it was great to see. The two turned the opportunities we had into points."