They now face Bridlington at Heath Road in the next round in mid-March, and on this showing, they must really fancy their chances of going all the way to the final at Twickenham in May.

Not that Head Coach Lee McDermott is taking anything for granted. “We must keep our feet on the ground and take it one game at a time. We still have plenty of work to do in the league if we are to achieve our ambition of promotion, and in that regard, the cup will take care of itself” he commented after the game.

Bowdon were simply never in the contest once Kevin Leadbetter had exploited a huge overlap to give them a fifth minute lead. Andrew Riley was next to score, followed by Leadbetter again and prop forward Paul Borg. Kevin Leadbetter also added a conversion to make the score 22 – nil at half time.

With Jon Hetherington and Harry Varley directing operations in the pack and man of the match Andy McIntosh spraying the ball around in fine style to get the backs moving, it was one way traffic in the second half.

The Riley brothers – Gareth and Andrew – combined to put the latter over for his second of the afternoon, and that was quickly followed by another from centre Dave Welsh which brought up the half century of points.

McIntosh, Glover and Welsh then put Leadbetter in the clear to complete his hat trick of tries. McIntosh himself then crossed before Welsh scored his second.

Coach McDermott then rang the changes and introduced Harrison, Alderson, Chadwick and Hatton to replace Clark, Hewlett, Farrow and Andy O’Neill who was back in the side for the first time in several months.

The changes failed to stop the Widnes momentum though and second rower Varley raced clear to be followed by three more tries in five minutes from Gareth Riley (2) separated by another from Andrew Riley to complete his hat trick.

The final act was saved for centre Phil Glover who crossed for the last try of the afternoon, whilst Kevin Leadbetter rounded off a great day for him personally with his eighth conversion and a 31 point haul.