widnes lost 12 4 at barrow halifax beat blackpool 50 28

Widnes out then?

I think they still qualified by virtue of the bonus point!

That we do. So in theory tonight's game was irrelevant. In practice, it was very very worrying.

It wasn't irrelevant for Barrow, we needed a win or a narrow defeat !

To be really honest, Barrow should have won by much more than we did and should have overturned the 21 points difference needed to knock Widnes out and put Keighley through. We had 4 tries disallowed (at least 2 looked good - even to some of the Widnes fans) and we bombed 3 or 4 good chances when we broke the line.

I'm trying not to get too carried away, but I think Raiders fans can be pretty optimistic about 2009.

I wouldnt fancy our chances up there at present. Good squad they have there now from what I am told.

Didn't you pick up a couple of huge Figians?

They must be good shipbuilders.........

I wouldn't get too carried away about beating us, we can make any side look good at the moment. The last good Widnes performance I saw was the Northern Rail Cup final back in 07 - we've been pretty crap ever since then.


** EDIT ** We did play pretty well against Leigh last year in the league match at Widnes, but you get the picture.

TBH when Fax played Barrow they looked very average. Their imports havnt turned up yet and by all accounts have run in to visa problems. They will obviously be a different propersition up in Cumbria but i think they will struggle away from home.
I guess Widnes must have sent a weakend team up there?

Nope!

We do have 6 players unavailable, but the team that went up there should have done the business.