I would agree that the squad is nowhere near strong enough, but we've had worse teams out this season than tonight and played better, so I wouldn't blame that on tonight. Our main fault IMO is atrocious ball control and it's the same week after week. How many times do we lose the ball on the 1st or 2nd tackle and immediately find ourselves defending again? When we played Wigan the other week, we defended for 12 tackles near our line. Scrum down, our ball, long pass to Ah Van out wide which he drops (1st tackle). Scrum down, their ball, they score, we lose game by 2 points. Posted earlier that it's same old, same old every week and that's where we are not improving at all. It's not so much bad defence as not respecting possession and always putting pressure on ourselves and it's so frustrating to watch every week.

Its strange really,since some of our players have got contract extensions our team performances have(apart from bratfud away)have been woeful,just saying

It's not great, I'll give you that no problem. At this moment, I reckon we're running on fumes and there are no options left due to us being at our limits. We really do need to kick on but I think it will be next season now before we do that.

look in SOOPER DOOPER league, it's either silverware/play offs, or nothing....then focus on next season. Widnes can look forward to 2014.

Spot on mate and your team was for the taking last night with Sykes and Collis injured early on.Betts in my opinion is not the best coach in the world and I thought Powell be better.Why Betts gave Pickgersgill and Leuluai a 2 yr contract shows lack of direction.Yes Leuluai shows effort but never hardly busts the line.65 mins to put Gore on to freshen up Clarke?I like Clarke but not a zippy number 9 and to get the best out of him then a longer rest required.Betts does not seem a great tactician.

We were poor last night, but we had chances maybe to win the match if we had shown a little more composure and enthusiasm. The bomb from Craven in the 1st half summed up our performance, a good bit of skill but the chase was non existant.

Danny Kirmonds performance typified Wakefields performance.

Thought our pack looked very weak last night - Wakey had such a territorial advantage they should have pasted us.

In Betts' defence you can't coach players to knock on the ball as often as they did last night, but without Mellor we really struggled for some fluency going forward.

Richard we don't seem to have enough punch in the forwards.I think 2 props like Cross and a fast hooker will improve our team a lot.I thought Brown had a decent game behind a beaten pack.

Hardly a kneejerk reaction though redchemic.This was yet another poor prformance from a Betts coached Widnes and the umpteenth defeat overseen by him.I think he has taken the club as far as he possibly can now.He even as much as admitted himself after last weeks thrashing from Leeds that the display had shades of 2012 about it.

I would be surprised if the new Board are even considering a change in the coaching (maybe at the end of the season if we haven't got more that the 14 points we have now and we get embarrassed at Wigan in the Cup, but even then I doubt it!).

I have a horrible feeling that the Cup game is one of the problems here, I sense that there is a genuine belief within the Club that we can pull off a win at Wigan and that all energies are focussed on that. A stupid approach if true, as I dont think its a realistic hope and even if it were I am not sure that we have the squad strength to go much further.

My preference is to consolidate our position in the league and not to leave ourselves vulnerable to being overtaken by Cas (or anyone else for that matter putting in a late burst!). A decent Cup run is fine if our league form is decent, but it clearly isn't at the moment.

What is so desperately frustrating though is that a half decent effort and we could have won last night's game, we gifted them the game with our own mistakes. They clearly put more effort and desire in than we did, but the chances were there and in the main went begging. A poor pass to Ah Van (which he might have done better with) prevented a certain try and losing the ball so many times when in an attacking position was just criminal.

Sadly Craven didn't look like a Superleague player, he wasn't alone, but we really missed Mellor.

As has been said before DB is not strong on tactics, he has been good this season at getting the best out of players and developing a strong team ethic.

Irrespective of what happens at Wigan, we really need to be back firing on all cylinders against London, we can't allow them to build on a decent performance away to Catalan.

Taking the point made by WV concerning Joe Mellor. Yes, we did miss him in midfield particularly for his defence around the scrum and the PTB, as well as his backing up. I can see why Betts keeps Hanbury at Full Back as Mellor has developed into a fine Scrum Half.

And just a little something I must add for the "Sack Betts Fraternity." Betts does not coack players to make silly mistakes like wild passes, stupid offloads, dropping the ball, forward passes, giving away daft penalties, and giving the ref backchat. I do hope some people realise that.

Yes but Betts offers or wants players to have contracts who are not at Superleague level.