Widnes were dire - a lot of large lumpish full time professionals - no pride in their shirt - and little skill - they were lucky it wasn't a bigger defeat. I expect them to be far more physical in their remaining matches - its the only way Catalans survived last year.

Well you certainly wouldn't have known who the SL side were would you . The support base tells you it's a failure

Widnes were lucky to be in the game in the last 20, ref let them lie on time and again. Will be interesting to see how the rest of the games are reffed, we’ve got Kendall who let Bird away with assault last season.

That certainly looked the case near the end when they were under a great deal of pressure. And how can Liam Finn possibly be "100% Widnes" when he's basically a stop gap? Even Charlie Gubb lost loads of steam - I bet he was surprised how hard London were. Only stand out Widnes player was their full back Ashall-Bott - now he does look very good.

Living The Dream - difference between me and Charlie is that he was proved quite often to be wrong, whereas still waiting for my first hit

That pi88ed me off too. they kept on about Widnes being full time as if London were not. Do Sky and their presenters not realise that 3 out of the top 4 are full time. I think at one point they mentioned only Toronto being full time. Sky and SL are in for a shock. I can see 2 SL clubs going being demoted this time, one being the 'mighty' Leeds.
Our League is getting better and they need to wake up..

UP THE FAX!

I’m all for ex-players being involved in commentary but they need to be good at the job, most of these aren’t so just get a good commentator in who can learn the background.
Aussie tv have a few female commentators who know their stuff, far better than these dinosaurs.

The 2007 NRC victory was, I believe, irrelevant. The criteria at the time stated, amongst other things, that a club had to have reached the NRC final in 2009/2010. Therefore Ben Black's dropped ball did get Widnes back into SL.

Or should I say, gave the governing body an excuse to shove them in.

If Fax move up into SL will you be one of the arrogant ones ???

Widnes reached the NRC final in both 2009 and 2010 (therefore backing up my argument YET AGAIN that the Ben Black dropped ball did not contribute to thieir successful franchise bid) and Fax did not get to the NRC final in either 2009 or 2010 but were still one of those who bid for a franchise, so your argument falls flat on its face. Fax, however, did reach the NRC in 2011 (losing to Leigh) so you're probably getting all confused.

To settle this....


You had to win the nrc to allow a franchise bid,not just get to final.Widnes lost there in 2010 but won it in 2009.However Blacky's brainfart was in the 2009 semi,so it was totally relevant.