Workington Town had their first pre-season work-out at Championship side Widnes Vikings and went down 42-0.
But coach Anthony Murray used a good number of players as he targets a strong show in the traditional Ike Southward Memorial Trophy clash with Whitehaven in a fortnight.
It will be interesting to see how Whitehaven shape as they are due to play a warm-up game at Widnes next week-end.
The Vikings are looking for a big show in the Championship this coming season and looked in good order against a Town side expected to put up a big show in League One.
The game next week is a testimonial for Widnes’ long-serving Jack Owens and he created the first try after six minutes for Ollie Brookes who went over in the corner.
Town applied good pressure of their own but Widnes defended well and when they got away to put together a strong attack Rhodri Lloyd went in under the posts for Tom Gilmore to convert.
Just before the half-time hooter Brookes got over for his second try and Gilmore improved for a 16-0 interval lead.
Four minutes into the second-half the hosts scored again. A high kick to the corner from Gilmore was palmed back by Lloyd and Joe Lyons gathered to go over. Gilmore converted.
The next try followed on 61 minutes when An Walker powered over and this time Kieran Dixon landed the conversion.
Owens was next over on 65 minutes and Dixon converted. Then Dixon himself went in for a try after a great kick through from Owens but the scorer’s conversion attempt came back off the post.
An unconverted try in the corner rounded-off the scoring for Widnes who move on to the Whitehaven game.
Town coach Murray will have been given food for thought by this opening hit-out but plenty of players had minutes in the middle.
