Widnes pile on Wakefield woe with eight-try demolition
Last Updated: 14/09/15 10:32am
Widnes took another step towards retaining Super League status with a 46-4 destruction of Wakefield on Saturday at Belle Vue.
Full-back Rhys Hanbury scored four of his own as the visitors racked up eight tries, with Lloyd White, Aaron Heremaia, Kevin Brown and Paddy Flynn contributing the others, while Danny Tickle contributed with five conversions.
An unconverted try from Lee Smith was Wakefield's only response.
The Wildcats had been competitive in the previous Qualifiers outings, but were outclassed by a clinical Vikings outfit who won their fourth game in five encounters to ensure they are on the right side of the table.
Wakefield on the other hand are now likely to be targeting the million pound game as their best chance of Super League survival.
Wakefield did well to hold out until the 15th minute before conceding, with Kevin Locke forced to pull off a flying tackle to prevent Hanbury from opening the scoring, while Tickle knocked the ball on over the line.
In the end Kevin Brown put Charly Runciman through a gap and hooker Lloyd White was in support to touch down.
The Vikings looked particularly threatening down the left channel where brilliant handling from Runciman and Patrick Ah Van handed Hanbury his first try.
The full-back then punished a handling error by Jacob Miller to add a second before replacement hooker Heremaia finished off a clean break by White for the visitors' fourth of the afternoon.
Tickle had converted three of the tries to make it 22-0 at half-time, and Widnes furthered their cause two minutes into the second half when Hanbury was on the end of Brown's grubber kick to complete his hat-trick, before Brown jinked his way over for a solo try, with Tickle making it 34-0 with his kick.
Wakefield finally stemmed the tide when Bill Tupou freed winger Lee Smith with a one-handed pass and, although he was brought down by a scrambling Brown, Smith forced his way over shortly afterwards for the score.
It did little to disrupt the Vikings' rhythm, however, as they continued to torment the fragile home defence.
Hanbury went over for his fourth try on the hour after centre Chris Dean snapped up a kick over the defence from Wakefield scrum-half Tim Smith and winger Paddy Flynn went through some shoddy tackling to score the 100th try of his career.
With Tickle off the field, Ah Van took over the goal kicking and added the last two conversions.
